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THE 
THIRD POWER 



Farmers to the Front 

77o 



By J. A. EVERITT 

President of The American Society of Equity of North America 
Indianapolis, U. S. A. 



INDIANAPOLIS 

THI HOLLENBECK PRESS 
1903 



Copyright 1903 by J. A. Everitt 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



CO 



\ £1 



CLA88 A-XX« No. 



TO 

THE LARGEST CLASS 
THE MOST DEPENDENT CLASS 
THE HARDEST WORKING CLASS 
THE POOREST PAID CLASS 
OF PEOPLE IN THE WORLD 
THE FARMERS 
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK 



PREFACE 

"The World as a World scarcely makes a living." 

— Horace Greeley. 

If there is a place or corner anywhere in the world 
where the producers of our food and clothing supplies 
(commonly called farmers) are not ready to revolt 
against the absolute domination of non-producing 
classes in pricing their products, I am not aware of it. 

That the old and thoroughly bad system can speedily 
be changed. The producers regulate the marketing 
of their products and make their own prices — I am 
thoroughly convinced. 

The farmers own the earth. We may safely claim 
that farming exists by Divine right. The farmers first 
possess all the food and clothing supplies which are in- 
dispensable for the life and comfort of humans and 
domestic animals ; their products constitute the greater 
portion of traffic for railroads and ships ; nearly all the 
factories work on raw material produced on the farms 
and the products of the factories are largely consumed 
by the farmers, or in equipments to handle farm prod- 
ucts. It is clear, the important position of the farmer 
in his relation to all other industries, and how closely 
all other industries are interwoven with that of agri- 
culture. It is the same way all over the world, in all 
civilized countries. 



PREFACE 

If any people, any one class, or any one industry is 
entitled to distinction as the preferred business, or its 
people "the select of the earth," that business is agri- 
culture and the people are the farmers. If any one 
class should prosper more than another, this distinction 
should fall to the farmers. But this is not an attempt 
to raise one class over others, it is not even an attempt 
to make all equal, but to equalize conditions so all may 
have an equal opportunity to secure a fair share of re- 
wards for efforts put forth. 

All movements for the benefit of the masses had op- 
position at the start. An idea may be born and pro- 
mulgated. The originator of the idea may be stoned to 
death or hung, but if the idea is good and has vital 
force, it grows and will nt)t down. An evolution once 
started never recedes, but develops into the perfect 
flower or fruit. 

This is an age of organization and cooperation. The 
old saying, "Competition is the life of trade", is 
changed to "Cooperation is the life of trade." 

An individual would be strong enough if he was the 
only individual in the world. However, if he is one of 
a large class he is weak and the larger the class the 
weaker the individual. The farmer class is the most 
numerous, hence, the individual farmer is the weakest 
individual when he stands alone. "In union there is 
strength." The greater the union the greater the 
strength. The farmers united would be the greatest 
union — greater than all other unions combined. They 
would represent a strength and power such as the 



PREFACE 

world never knew before. The farmer power is the 
third power to assert itself, but will be the first power 
in strength and importance. 

The bestirring and awakening of this last and great- 
est power is the most significant event of the present 
generation. No individual, no matter what his posi- 
tion — professional, industrial or political — can afford 
to ignore its birth and make calculations on its rise. 
For, while it is not a power that will contest for mas- 
tery by brute force in the fields economic or politic, it 
will affect all in its demands for equity and the equal 
rights of man. 

The entrance of the American Society of Equity 
into the economic problems of the world, through 
which the Third Power will rise, marks an epoch. The 
-awakening of the agricultural classes, the organiza- 
tion of them into national and international coopera- 
tive bodies, which is now being accomplished, will re- 
move agriculture from the list of uncertain industries 
and place it on a basis of certainty for prices equal to 
that enjoyed by the best regulated manufacturing or 
commercial enterprises. 

The undertaking is great, but since the correct plan 
has been evolved, the desirable ends, in the ordinary 
evolution of the times, will work out as surely as the 
fruit follows the flower. The revolution that will take 
place in prevailing customs and laws might appal us 
if it was not for the fact that, in the working out of 
this stupendous movement everything will be toward 



PREFACE 

betterments — physically, socially, industrially and po- 
litically. 

The hope of the author is that the soil owners and 
workers will be aroused to a sense of the true condition 
of their industry; that agriculture in America and 
throughout the world will soon occupy the high posi- 
tion to which it is entitled, when it will stand first of 
all in importance and power. 

A fair, equitable, impartial, unprejudiced consider- 
ation of the Third Power is asked and your coopera- 
tion to quickly make it a real power is solicited. 

The Author. 



CONTENTS 

First Part — Pages. 

The Third Power 1-194 

Second Part — 

International Consolidation of Agricultural Inter- 
ests 197-232 

Third Part — 

The American Society of Equity 235-238 

Plan of the American Society of Equity 239-243 

The Results of Farmers' Cooperation Briefly Stated. 244-245 

Articles of Incorporation 246-248 

Constitution and By-Laws 249-253 

Questions and Answers 254-266 



THE THIRD POWER 



CHAPTER I 

RIGHT SHALL PREVAIL 

A hundred years, and more, ago, 

The farmers rose their rights to take; 

They were the first to strike a blow 
For freedom's and for country's sake. 

Colonial sires, your path we tread, 

Against oppression's tyrant hand; 
Our bloodless battle shall be led, 

Till justice reigns throughout the land. 

We battle for the common good, 

Our flag in freedom's cause unfurled, 

As when "the embattled farmers stood, 
And fired the shot heard round the world." 

— Elma Iona Locke. 

There is some danger to-day lest we forget that 
there are three factors in production — land, labor 
and capital. The political economist told us this 
many years ago, but when we read of the operations 
of Morgan, Gates, Schwab, and the other great capi- 
talists and promoters, we are sometimes almost con- 
vinced that these men are the sole creators of wealth, 
and that land and labor really have nothing to do 



2 THE THIRD POWER 

with it. Yet the old law is sound, and so it will 
stand. Mr. Morgan has to stand on the earth, and 
in this sense at least it is the land that supports him. 
The Chicago gamblers could not speculate in wheat 
unless there were such a thing as wheat in existence. 
Mr. W. B. Leeds's railroad could last but a little 
while if it were not for the crops that have to be 
carried to market. So it is clear that these men do 
not create, and can not create anything. All that 
they do is to change the form of wealth, or to make, 
not to create, new wealth by the application of capi- 
tal and labor to the products of the land, in one way 
or the other. If they make money in any other way 
they do it simply by taking it from some one else. 
The middleman, who gets between two people who 
want to trade, and takes toll of them both, adds 
nothing to the wealth of the country. The subject 
then is creation, and the relation of the different 
factors to it. 

If it be true that the prosperity and material well- 
being of a country is dependent on the efficiency of 
these three instruments, land, labor and capital, it 
follows that we should do all we can to increase the 
efficiency of these instruments and maintain them 
at a high standard. We often seem to act as though 
we did not believe this to be true. For each class, 
instead of trying to add to the efficiency of other 
classes as well as of itself, frequently strives to in- 
crease its efficiency at the expense of the other 
classes. Labor seeks to extract the last dollar from 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 3 

capital, and capital endeavors to force labor to work 
for the lowest wages possible. Organized capital and 
organized labor combine to beat down the price of 
products from the land until workers on our farms 
are the poorest paid of any class of laborers. In- 
stead of cooperation, we see a struggle on the part 
of each to get ahead of the others. Yet the intelli- 
gent laboring man knows that the more capital there 
is in the country, provided it be wisely and produc- 
tively employed and carefully managed, the better it 
is for him. And the intelligent employer under- 
stands that in order for him to get the best results 
he must pay his men enough to enable them to live 
well and keep themselves in good mental and phys- 
ical condition. Perhaps it is safe — at any rate it 
seems to be necessary — to allow each of these classes 
to carry on this guerrilla warfare for its own good, 
even though success costs the rival something, trust- 
ing that good may in the long run come out of the 
conflict of interests. With land, however, we all 
admit the necessity of keeping the farmers prosper- 
ous to insure prosperity to others. 

Certain it is that the efficiency of labor and capi- 
tal has vastly increased in our day, particularly in 
our country. The freer use of the credit system, 
the more intelligent management of money, the 
rapid turning over of capital, the wonderful increase 
in the use of machinery, and intelligent labor, have 
all cooperated to enable capital to do things which 
it did not even dream of a generation ago. We 



4 THE THIRD POWER 

build bridges in the Egyptian desert in half the time 
and for half the cost that the English can. The 
Atlas Works in Indianapolis ships engines all over 
the world, and sells them in freest competition with 
foreign makes. There is hardly a country on earth 
that has not heard the scream of the American loco- 
motive, the click of the American typewriter, and 
enjoyed the blessings of cheap American bread. 
The conquests of American capital and the effect 
of the wonderful resources of this country have been 
marvelous. Turning to labor we find that here, 
too, there has been an increase in efficiency. Edu- 
cation, growing intelligence and skill, sobriety, ca- 
pacity for hard work, ambition to rise out of the la- 
bor class and to become a boss, facility in the use of 
machinery, inventive faculty, have all combined to 
make our labor the most efficient in the world. But 
to a certain extent these influences have been at 
work on the farms as well as in the counting-room, 
the mill and the factory. And our farmers are far 
in advance of their fathers and grandfathers in 
ability to turn out results in crops. But there is one 
great thing which they have not yet learned, and 
that is the power of combination. The laborer has 
been much helped by his unions, and because of 
them he can command a wage such as his brethren 
of other days could not. Through his unions he has 
made his importance felt, and has often been able 
to dictate terms to his employer. That employer 
also has found a great help in combination. By 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 5 

means of corporations and trusts he has been able to 
carry through large enterprises, to have something 
to say about wages, to decrease the cost of produc- 
tion while keeping no small part of the saving for 
himself, and to influence, if not to constitute prices. 
So we see combinations, cooperation and trusts in 
almost every branch of industry. But the farmer 
has yet to learn the lesson. Others have something 
to say about the prices at which they will sell their 
commodities. If they do not fix them, they at least 
do influence them favorably to themselves. When 
the market is glutted, the manufacturer or mine- 
owner can curtail production, or shut down entirely, 
until the demand catches up with or runs ahead of 
the supply. The laborer can and does refuse to 
work ' except on terms reasonably satisfactory to 
himself, and the mere fear of a strike often drives 
the employer to make concessions which he would 
not otherwise think of making. The worker has a 
voice in the making of his wages, and the employer 
passes the tax along by making his prices accord- 
ingly. 

But the farmer allows others to make prices for 
him. All he is supposed to know under the present 
system is how to work sixteen hours a day and the 
road to market. When he gets there he finds a man 
who tells him how much his produce is worth, and 
if he wants to take something home with him he is 
told the price of that also. He has no organization, 
and no method of bringing pressure to bear on those 



6 THE THIRD POWER 

who buy from him. Speculators and gamblers on 
boards of trade tell him what he shall sell his pro- 
duce for. And he sells at their figures. The board 
of trade gamblers juggle with the price, and, though 
the condition of the crops and production and con- 
sumption should govern prices, they have very 
little influence. The prices of the important farm 
crops are made in organized markets by great ag- 
gregations of corporate capital ruled by unscrupu- 
lous human agencies, or by speculators who set 
prices arbitrarily without any reference to supply, 
demand or equity. This arbitrary fixing of prices 
destroys the independence of the greatest class of 
our citizens — the farmers — and is more tyrannical 
than were the taxes imposed by George III. This 
is because the farmers are unorganized, and usually 
without a knowledge of the real conditions. Com- 
mercial slavery of this degree is as bad as personal 
slavery. Thus the greatest class in the production 
of wealth, on which all others depend, is at the 
mercy of a few." The farmers are unorganized, de- 
moralized industrially, and without any influence on 
the situation at all proportionate to their importance. 
Comparatively speaking, they are powerless. They 
grow all the stuff possible and sell it for what they 
can get — and then wonder why the year's balance 
sheet does not show a better result. 

The agricultural industry of the country is still 
the victim of the most intensive competition sys- 
tem ever established. Each farm is in constant war- 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 7 

fare against all the others. Each is striving to 
produce the greatest yields possible — in face of the 
indisputable fact that the larger the yields the lower 
the prices — and then sells the products without the 
least regard to other producers. In this way the 
markets are oftentimes glutted and perfect condi- 
tions produced for organized speculators and gam- 
blers to perform their perfect work in depressing 
prices. Notwithstanding that the farmer of to- 
day, with the wonderful machines at his command, 
can produce five times as much product as the 
farmer of a few generations ago, his net earning 
capacity has not increased, but rather decreased. 
Also his land which then was virgin soil has become 
in large part exhausted; which item of itself repre- 
sents probably half the value of his farm, and will 
require good management, the outlay of much labor 
and a large cash sum to replace. 

The American farmer of to-day is not living from 
his investments in farm land, but as a mere laborer, 
and receives less than half as much pay as the union 
laborer, yet works harder and longer hours. In 
short, the farmers of the United States can only 
continue in business on the present basis by using 
the cheapest labor on earth, i. e., wife labor, child 
labor, and labor of their babes. The prices set by 
speculators and gamblers for the fine grain, vege- 
tables and fruit — the products of God's earth — com- 
pel the agriculturist to resort to such unbearable 
extremities. No hired men can be secured to take 



8 THE THIRD POWER 

their places at wages the farmers can pay. While 
the nation and states cry against female and child 
labor in factories, not a word of protest is raised 
against the toil of the farmer's wife and children. 

Why is it so that the farmers, who own the earth, 
control the food and clothing supplies (wool and 
cotton), are the creators of nearly all real wealth, 
the foundation of all our institutions, who are the 
most numerous and as a class the most wealthy, 
have become reduced to this condition of slavery ? 

It is a stupendous problem which, if solved, will 
mean more for humanity than anything since the 
Christian era. The dawn of equity to the farmers 
and through them to the balance of humanity, 
means the beginning of a social and industrial mil- 
lennium. 

Let us see what, then, can be done to elevate the 
agricultural business of this country and of the 
world and place it on an equality with the best of 
other professions and industries. 

The fact that capitalists and laborers are so effect- 
ively organized makes it especially important that 
the farmers should organize. It is becoming clearer 
and clearer every day that whatever advantage 
either the capitalistic or laboring class wins, is won 
not so much at the expense of the other as at the 
expense of the great bodies of unorganized people 
who can not defend themselves. When wages are 
forced up by a strike the farmer pays a large part of 
the raise by an increase of price on what he buys. 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 9 

When trusts lift prices simply because they have the 
power to do so, this increase also is largely made 
out of the farmers who are the greatest consumers. 
It must be so. The strife between organizations is 
bound to hurt the unorganized. When Mr. Mitchell 
and Mr. Baer agree on an increased scale of wages, 
Mr. Baer at once shoves up the price of coal. And 
the closer the unions and the trusts get together the 
more certain it is that the unorganized mob of con- 
sumers, of which the farmers constitute by far the 
largest element, will have to pay for whatever 
gain either wins, because they are not in a position 
to pass it along. 

From every point of view, therefore, it is im- 
perative that the farmers should organize, not for 
political, but for business reasons. Surely the man 
who raises the crops ought to have something to 
say about the price he gets for them. He should 
also know how much wheat, for instance, is being 
raised, so he may know what it is, in equity, worth ; 
and, let me say, a needful commodity is always 
worth, in equity, what it cost to produce it, with a 
fair margin for profit added. This margin should 
be rated the same as others have set on their goods. 
The cost should be found on a basis that allows the 
producer a wage equal to what others get, interest 
on investment, a sum that will repair waste or over- 
come depreciation of the plant, with profit added. 
Then we have an equitable value. If his market is 
in danger of being glutted it should be as easy as it 



io THE THIRD POWER 

would be quite as justifiable for him to curtail his 
output or marketing as it is for the manufacturer. 
He should have it in his power, as the laborer has, 
to say that he will not work except for fair remuner- 
ation. As it is now he is hedged around by the 
scheming of the shrewdest men in the world who 
manipulate his markets in mysterious ways. Be- 
sides this, his business is also subject to other un- 
certain conditions, such as weather, insects, blight, 
rust, etc. He can not escape from his thraldom 
to the natural causes. But he ought, as a freeborn 
American citizen, to vow that he will break the 
chains of his slavery to the other masters. 

The question is simply one of the application of 
power. The farmer has the power to get whatever 
he wants, and to make his life what it should be. 
He must learn how to use it. No power except 
highly organized power is of any value in these 
times. The individual man is industrially powerless 
in the United States to-day. Two things, therefore, 
seem to be clear. First, the farmer must use his 
power to the end that he may be his own master, and 
not the slave of others and the burden-bearer of the 
nation. Second, he must learn that the only way in 
which he can use the power which is his, is through 
organization, an organization of his own, controlled 
by himself, and in his own interest. By doing this 
he will benefit, not only himself, but all, classes of 
society. It is not proposed that he should wage a 
war of offense but simply one of defense. He is not 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT n 

to ask privileges, but to insist on his rights — rights 
which other classes of society now exercise without 
question from any one, rights which in the farmer's 
case are Divine. Power applied through organiza- 
tion is the industrial law of the day. The farmer 
must rule his life by it. 



CHAPTER II 

There's the wily speculator, 

Who forms his rings of steel, 
While the honest man is toiling 

In the hot and scorching field. 
He is lying awake and planning, 

You may rightfully suppose, 
To cheat the honest farmer 

Out of everything he grows. 

In Frank Norris's great novel, "The Pit," is this : 
"They call it buying and selling, down there in 
La Salle Street. But it is simply betting. Betting 
on the condition of the market weeks, even months 
in advance. You bet wheat goes up. I bet it goes 
down. Those fellows in the pit don't own the 
wheat; never even see it. Wouldn't know what to 
do with it if they had it. They don't care in the 
least about the grain. But there are thousands upon 
thousands of farmers out here in Iowa and Kansas 
or Dakota who do, and hundreds of thousands of 
poor devils in Europe who care even more than the 
farmer. I mean the fellows who raise the grain, 
and the other fellows who eat it. It's life or death 
for either of them, and right between these two 
comes the Chicago speculator, who raises or lowers 
the price out of all reason, for the benefit of his 

12 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 13 

pocket. Here is what I mean, it's like this. If we 
send the price of wheat down too far, the farmer 
suffers, the fellow who raised it ; if we send it up too 
far, the poor man in Europe suffers, the fellow who 
eats it. And food to the peasant on the continent is 
bread — not meat or potatoes, as it is with us. The 
only way to do so that neither the American farmer 
nor the European peasant suffers, is to keep wheat at 
an average, legitimate value. The moment you in- 
flate, or depress that, somebody suffers right away, 
and that is just what these gamblers are doing all the 
time, booming it up, or booming it down. Think of 
it. ; the food of hundreds and hundreds of thousands 
of people just at the mercy of a few men down there 
on the board of trade. They make the price. They 
say just how much the peasant shall pay for his 
loaf of bread. If he can't pay the price, he simply 
starves. And as for the farmer, why it's ludicrous. 
If I build a house and offer it for sale, I put my own 
price on it, and if the price offered don't suit me I 
don't sell. But if I go out here in Kansas and raise 
a crop of wheat, I've got to sell it, whether I want 
to or, not, at the figure named by some fellows in 
Chicago. And to make themselves rich, they make 
me sell it at a price that bankrupts me." 

That is a true picture of the actual situation. 
Farmers sometimes talk as though they believed that 
this gambling in wheat was a good thing for them, 
but they forget that what they want is a certain 
definite and steadily maintained price; not a high 



14 THE THIRD POWER 

price that will stimulate over-production, but an 
equitable price that will always secure the neces- 
saries, comfort and some of the luxuries of life. A 
good price for a large crop, as well as for a short 
crop. A steadily maintained price, made by farm- 
ers, on the farm, instead of the uncertain price made 
by the speculators and gamblers on the boards of 
trade in large cities. They may and do make 
money — a few of them — out of an occasional corner, 
but the artificially raised price stimulates holdings; 
the farmers do not sell until the gamblers have had 
their innings, the price breaks, and the farmers rush 
their produce to market, and more often than not 
the sales are made on a falling market, and at prices 
as much too low as the corner price was too high. 
Speculators know how prone farmers are to hold on 
a rising market, and this helps them to accomplish 
their ends. In other words, the farmer does not 
control the situation. He simply supplies the chips 
with which the gamblers play the game, and even 
when he wins he does so in violation of the princi- 
ples of equity. There is no design on the part of 
the gamblers that he should win: The grain pits are 
a curse to everybody that they touch. They are 
barnacles that have attached themselves on the pro- 
duce of the earth. The speculators and gamblers in 
farm products are sap-sucking, unholy, Godless 
things that are holding up and gorging themselves 
on labor's portion as it is created on the farms. 
Boards of trade now run in the large cities are the 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 15 

Devil's own workshop, where the rewards for honest 
labor are forged to the profit of the non-producing 
class. They are the greatest blight on the body of 
industry — a danger that threatens the very life of 
the farming industry of America. They are a bold, 
fearless, devilish power, that defies the laws of 
morality, the state and nation. There is only one 
power that can dethrone them. It is the grand, 
sweeping, majestic strength of cooperative produc- 
ers. If the farmers' produce were not a necessity, 
it would not be chosen for gambling purposes. 
Men do not gamble with diamonds, for people can 
get along without them. They do not gamble with 
air, for every one can get all of it that he needs. 
Farm products are chosen because everybody uses 
them, and because they can not be got without pay- 
ing for them, and also because, under present condi- 
tions, the farmers do not control them. 

Farmers can be a power. They represent the 
greatest invested capital and they are the most nu- 
merous. They own the earth, consequently they can 
control the food and clothing supplies. A.lso, it is 
clear, in their fundamental position and numerical 
and financial strength, they hold the key to our en- 
tire political and industrial system. 

Unorganized, the farmers are weak and the prey 
of all other strong individuals and organized classes. 
Organized, they will become the dominant power, 
and their business or profession will become the pre- 
ferred on earth. Organized to put prices on their 



16 THE THIRD POWER 

own products they can remove many of the uncer- 
tainties now attending farming, and elevate the pro- 
fession until it will be the equal of manufacturing, 
banking, merchandising, etc. Farming is manufac- 
turing, banking and merchandising. To farm suc- 
cessfully also requires a technical knowledge equal- 
ing that demanded by any other profession, and 
which requires more application and years to attain 
than most of the professions ; therefore, the success- 
ful farmer must be a man of great attainment and 
broad business qualifications. This will particularly 
be true from this time forward, when more intensive 
farming must be practiced to meet the ever increas- 
ing demands brought about by the increasing popu- 
lation and the multiplying abilities to consume. 

It is clear that farmers have within them un- 
doubted, great power, but they can only exert it 
through organization and cooperation. There are 
only two questions before the farmers to-day, the 
one is : Do you want to become free, independent 
and a powerful factor — in fact the most powerful 
and influential class in the world ? The other is : 
Will you embrace the one way to accomplish your 
freedom and independence and place you at the head 
in this country and others, socially, industrially, and 
through your power of numbers be able to force a 
clean, strong, equitable government? Will the 
farmers answer these questions in the affirmative, 
or will they be forever the prey of the gamblers, 
the transportation companies, and other powers 



FARMERS TO -THE FRONT 17 

which make whatever rates and prices they please, 
and discriminate against one class and in favor of 
others ? To hold that this condition of things must 
continue is to hold that the farmers, on whom all 
others depend for their very life, comfort and privi- 
lege to do business, must depend on those who are 
really dependent on them. If the farmers were able 
to put a value on each of their products the betting 
in Chicago would stop, for the gamblers would know 
that they could not settle except on terms made 
by the farmers. If the farmers would control their 
own products, they could refuse to ship until the 
railroads gave them fair and equitable rates, and so 
along the whole line. No man can buy until some 
other one is willing to sell, and if the farmers of 
the United States could say through their organiza- 
tion that they would not sell till they got their price, 
they would get it. They could corner the supply as 
easily as the Chicago gamblers can, simply by hold- 
ing on to what is their own — to what no one else 
has any right to except on payment of the price de- 
manded by the owner, and they would soon come 
to the farm, or to the farmer's representative — his 
society — and meet his terms. Only thus can the 
farmer win his freedom and independence, and he 
can do it without infringing on the rights of any 
one else, and to the infinite betterment of all. 

These questions seem simple enough, and yet they 
are apparently giving a good deal of trouble to cer- 
tain classes of people who are already somewhat dis- 



1 8 THE THIRD POWER 

turbed at the thought that perhaps the farmers may 
decide to control their own business. In a recent 
number of Harper's Weekly, which is supposed to 
be dependent on certain Wall Street influences for 
its existence, there was printed an article entitled, 
"The Twentieth Century Farmer." It was, as all 
such articles coming from such sources invariably 
are, exceedingly flattering. We are assured, not 
only that the farmer is a good fellow, but that he 
has things pretty much his own way. "There are, 
for instance," the writer says, "scores of school dis- 
tricts in the thinly settled portions of the plains 
where the entire tax is paid by railroads and eastern 
corporations, and farmers' children attend the 
schools so supported." But the school tax is a tax 
on property, and if railroads and eastern corpora- 
tions own the property in these districts, is there any 
reason why they should not pay the taxes assessed 
against it ? How can this be considered a bonus to 
the farmer? Further, we know — if we know any- 
thing about taxation — that corporations shift the 
burden of taxation whenever they can possibly do 
so. If, in order to pay this school tax, the railroads 
raise freight rates, which are paid by the farmers, 
the farmers after all pay the school tax. At the 
very most our case simply is one in which the farm- 
ers find a chance to get even — pass the tax along; 
there is no gratuity involved in it, yet this movement 
means more than is yet evident. The tax will not 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 19 

be passed along to the innocent consumers as I will 
show. 

The Harper's Weekly writer speaks of the ex- 
pense incurred by the general government for irriga- 
tion as something wholly for the benefit of the 
farmer. Surely it is for the benefit of all — of the 
whole country. Every foot of new territory opened 
up adds just so much to the wealth of all, and brings 
down the cost of food. This certainly is not to the 
special advantage of the farmers as a class. They 
are precisely the people that would be least benefited 
by it. Every new farm created out of the present 
arid region means just so much additional compe- 
tition for the farmers already engaged in operating 
farms. 

I have opposed this irrigation scheme at every 
opportunity and claim that if the government really 
is desirous of doing something for the farmers it 
can accomplish much more at less expense by help- 
ing the present farmers to irrigate their lands. Our 
present farms are not producing a third as much as 
they can and must in a comparatively few years 
when the population of the world has doubled again. 
Our averages of thirteen bushels of wheat, twenty- 
seven of corn, and other crops in proportion are 
distressingly low. Consumption has fully caught 
up with production, in fact in some lines is ahead 
of production. If the flow of the farm products to 
market was not hampered and restricted by the self- 
ish interests of speculators and gamblers, and the 



20 THE THIRD POWER 

uncertainties of values, which enter into every trans- 
action in agricultural products under the present 
system, the consumption to-day of grains, meat, 
fabrics, fruit, etc., would be immensely more. In- 
tensive farming that will double, and finally treble 
the yields of our farms will be a necessity. It is not 
too early to begin now. This means irrigation, 
fertilization and scientific cultivation. Instead of the 
government, at fabulous expense, opening up a vast 
area of land that God did not design for cultivation 
until the more improved portion of our country 
was producing to its maximum, it can more equita- 
bly help the present farmers along the road to pros- 
perity by irrigating the eastern part of our country. 

One acre of irrigated land is equal in producing 
ability to three of non-irrigated land in our Missis- 
sippi Valley. Therefore, if the government would 
carry out its irrigation scheme completely, in a short 
time it would set our present farmers back a genera- 
tion, and possibly prevent them from realizing their 
fond hopes of profitable prices for farm products. 
Our farmers are now just arriving at the point 
where they can rise above the competition of new 
territory being opened up for cultivation, and it 
would be a great calamity to subject them to this 
artificially created competition. 

Let the government encourage irrigation and in- 
tensive farming on our present farms. It will re- 
sult in dividing the large farms into small ones; 
prevent the small ones from being- merged into large 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 21 

holdings ; furnish new homes for millions of fam- 
ilies in sections of the country where the conditions 
are most favorable for social enjoyment and in- 
dustrial success. True, this plan may not be of a 
great benefit to a few railroad corporations and 
other powerful interests, but will benefit many mil- 
lions of the common people, and add untold mil- 
lions to the wealth of our country. 

The fact is that there are practically no laws for 
the benefit of the farmers, and it is the intention of 
the corporated powers, through the political ma- 
chines, that there shall not be any. Ours is a gov- 
ernment by the people in theory, but by corporations 
in practice. The people have won their way with 
little help from the federal government. In the 
very article under consideration we are reminded of 
the futile efforts of the farmer to get favoring legis- 
lation. "Once in a while," it is said, "there is a po- 
litical insurrection, and a Farmers' Alliance sweeps 
the boards, sending farmer legislators to frame 
super-partial laws, which later are blasted by 
courts." So it is, and so it must ever be until the 
farmers learn how to exert their strength in practi- 
cal ways and for practical ends. But we are told 
that "the settler demands the Indian's land and 
gets it." "That he demands the ranchman's grazing 
territory and obtains that." Of course this is true, 
and it would be true if there were not a government 
in existence. For the natural evolution is from the 
savage state to the pastoral state, up to the agri- 



22 THE THIRD POWER 

cultural state. Nothing could keep the farmer from 
getting the lands of the Indian and the ranchman. 
But the moment the farmer attempts to better his 
condition then we have a howl from the men who 
use every power they have, not simply to help them- 
selves, but to persuade or force the government into 
helping them. So we have this in the article in 
Harper's Weekly: 

"The demagogue devotes a great deal of attention 
to the farmers. Frequent schemes for uniting the 
wheat-growers or for forcing up the price of corn 
are evolved ; cooperative plans to make unnecessary 
the 'middleman' are exploited — and usually with 
provision for a salary or commission to some shrewd 
city promoter who would not know a self-binder 
from a corn-harvester. Every little while the tele- 
graph tells of the probable formation of a mighty 
union of farmers to reduce or limit the acreage of 
some crop. It ends in smoke — it was the dream of 
a schemer who hoped to profit by its success." 

The threatened combination of the farmers is 
clearly not looked on with approval by the financial 
interests. Nothing that would benefit the farmer 
ever was looked on with approval by those interests. 
So in this article, the farmer is warned against 
"demagogues" seeking to make money out of their 
schemes, as if the very men who sound the warning 
had not all their lives made their living by "farm- 
ing the farmers." There are many good texts in 
this Harper's Weekly article. Here is another : 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 23 

"There are indications that the farmer does not 
take these things (proposed organizations) as seri- 
ously as he once did. He reads the daily maga- 
zines; he understands something of the other side 
of life. He travels more than in the days of high 
railway rates; the excursions back east for 'Old 
Home Week' bring him in touch with the people of 
other states. He is made broader and happier. 
Most important of all, he is learning to make of his 
occupation a business, and when that is done, he 
ceases to consider himself the favorite of fortune. 
As a result he becomes a business man, and takes 
rank among the captains of industry — not the com- 
mander, for none is supreme in rank, but an equal 
sharer in the advancement and prosperity of the na- 
tion." 

Well, if the farmer has become a business man, 
why should he not act as a business man? Other 
business men strive to the uttermost to control the 
market; they form gigantic combinations to limit 
output, to lift prices, to regulate wages, and to 
"work" the government. Surely it is not demagog- 
ical to urge him to do what other business men are 
doing in the way of managing their own business. 
If Mr. Morgan may combine all the steel mills of 
the country in one great organization, there would 
seem to be nothing wrong in the farmer attempting 
to apply the same method to his own business. If 
he is to be a "captain of industry," he should profit 
by the examples of other captains of industry as far, 



24 THE THIRD POWER 

of course, as they keep within the law and the re- 
quirements of sound morals. Nor is there any rea- 
son why the farmer should not be the "commander/' 
and "supreme." The farming class outnumbers any 
other class in the country. There are more than 
10,000,000 men engaged in agriculture, and upon 
them we all depend for our very life. Probably one- 
half the people in gainful occupations are either 
farmers or people connected closely with cultivation 
of the soil. Their products constitute the great bulk 
of our exports, and their crops are the most valu- 
able asset that the country has. We might survive 
the loss of our steel mills, but if our farms were to 
quit producing the country would go to ruin. Why 
should not the farmers be supreme? And if they 
strive for something less than supremacy — namely, 
mere parity with the rest of our people — ought they 
not to be encouraged ? What is urged here is that 
the farmer should realize that he is, what Harper's 
Weekly says he is, "a business man," and govern 
himself accordingly. He should play the part which 
we all agree is his, use business methods, look out 
for himself and his own interests, and use his vast 
power for his own good. Surely there is nothing 
radical in all this. No line of action is marked out 
for the farmer which other business men do not 
follow to their own advantage. It is no more dem- 
agogical to say that the farmer ought to make his 
own prices and regulate his marketing than it is for 
a Wall Street promoter to suggest to the steel men 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 25 

that they can make more money by combining for 
the purpose of controlling the market, regulating 
wages, and dictating prices. The cases are precisely 
parallel. The real truth is that the critics of such 
a policy on the part of the farmers know that it 
would be effective — and they do not want it to be 
effective. They know further than this, plans pro- 
posed — some of them in operation already in a 
limited way — are marked by none of the weaknesses 
that characterized the Grange, the Farmers' Alli- 
ance, and the People's Party. The fruit growers in 
some sections have already organized, and they have 
much to do with securing a profitable market for 
their product. When they find that the market in 
a certain city is full and in another is bare, they di- 
vert the shipments from the former to the latter 
city ; and the association keeps its members informed 
as to the state of the market. So there are farmers' 
societies in certain sections, covering a few counties, 
which are doing the same thing. 

There is nothing impracticable about this. If 
this limited cooperation is good, who will deny that 
complete national cooperation will not do more 
good. So when it is proposed to apply the same 
great principle of combination, which the Wall 
Street people have seen work so well in a limited 
way, to the whole agricultural class, we have a great 
outcry against it. They think organization is good 
for all people and all classes but the farmers. Some 
educators have tried to point out other ways for 



26 THE THIRD POWER 

farmers to make their business profitable. One of 
these advised to put wheat to one dollar a bushel, 
to "sow less wheat and put the ground in more 
profitable crops." That's ed&y.;! buV'he: sapped too 
soon. Why did he not tell what these neglected 
crops are that would be more profitable? Another 
recommends, to cure all the ills of farming and 
make it profitable, to "Always sell at the highest 
price." A very simple plan. We recommend the 
farmer who can carry out this plan to not join a 
cooperative society. A certain professor of an agri- 
cultural college says, "Farm as we do. Our wheat 
yields thirty-one bushels per acre, while the average 
in Indiana this year (1903) is about ten bushels." 
When I asked him what he thought wheat would 
be worth if all raised three times as much without 
the ability to fix prices, he said : "Well, I had not 
thought of that." Others advise the farmer to 
"have patience and Divine Providence will work out 
their salvation." But I don't think it right to throw 
the whole job on God. Besides it is written, "God 
helps those who help themselves." Others say: 
"Wait for the regeneration of man, and your trou- 
bles will disappear." Having waited several thou- 
sand years already for this much desired time, I can 
not see much encouragement in this advice for pres- 
ent day farmers. 

Organization by farmers is objected to now, sim- 
ply because they know it will be effective in the 
light of twentieth century experience. No better 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 27 

argument in its favor ought to be asked. But why- 
object? Organization of farmers on the plan pro- 
posed will not harm, but will benefit every legitimate 
business. 



CHAPTER III 

In the rustle of the cornfields, 

And the plowman's weary tread, 
And the fingers of the tassels 

Raised beseechingly o'erhead — 
In them all a thousand voices 

Whisper in the listening ear, 
"Toil will ne'er possess its products 

Until Equity is here." 

In the broad and waving wheatfields, 

A million heads may bow, 
And in sunlight gold may glitter, 

Promised fruitage of the plow ; 
Still the passing breezes whisper 

In the anxious listening ear, 
"Toil's just reward will linger 

Until Equity is here." 

So with orchard's blushing treasure, 

And with meadow's wealth of hay, 
And the lowing in the pastures, 

And the garden's rich array — 
All proclaim the same sad warning, 

Toil in vain will seek its own, 
For each season's stores will vanish 

Until Equity shall come. 

We thus have the three powers — money power, 
organized labor, and the farmer. And the question 
is as to the necessity of making the third power a 
real power. Let us consider first the relation of 

28 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 29 

these three powers, as things now stand, to the busi- 
ness of government. When a man is elected to con- 
gress he finds that the capitalist and the working 
man are keenly alive to their own interests, and that 
they are both capable of exerting, and as a matter 
of fact, do exert, much influence in Washington and 
in our various state capitals. Their representatives 
throng the lobby and committee rooms, and press 
in the most vigorous way on the lawmakers the 
claims of labor and capital. If a tariff is to be made, 
abundant opportunity is given to both capital and 
labor — especially to the former — to be heard, and the 
opportunity is improved to the uttermost. When a 
question of subsidy comes up the rich men who 
want the subsidy do not hesitate to urge the matter 
on congress, and congress is exceedingly defer- 
ential. The workingmen have got their eight-hour 
law, arbitration statutes, laws regulating the opera- 
tion of factories and mines, anti-child labor laws, 
weekly wages laws, etc. And all this is taken as a 
matter of course. But back on the farm, far out on 
the lonely prairie perhaps, is a man who works with 
his wife, children and babes, harder than any other 
class of people on earth. There is no law passed to 
prevent child labor on the farm. No eight or even 
ten hour day. They work from sun to sun and then 
some more, and oftentimes when the year rolls 
around receive a smaller wage than convicts who 
are farmed out to corporations. Our new congress- 
man hears little or nothing of him. He does not 



3 o THE THIRD POWER 

spend much time in congressional or legislative 
halls. He is not consulted about tariffs or subsi- 
dies. Statesmen are not wearied with his importu- 
nities. No lobby rights his battles. He is practically 
forgotten. Congress taxes him for the benefit of 
the capitalists, and he does not complain — nay, he 
seems to feel that he has no reason to complain. He 
has his duty on wheat and a few other crops, to 
be sure, which in no way affects its price, a duty 
which is imposed simply for the purpose of making 
the farmer believe that he is getting some return 
for the taxes that he is forced to pay for the benefit 
of other people, and which in effect works to the 
benefit of the speculators and gamblers, by prevent- 
ing a flow from outside countries when they want 
to manipulate the market here. If a farmer goes to 
Washington he feels so honored and flattered by 
any little attentions his representative may show 
him that he never thinks of suggesting that he needs 
anything in the way of legislation. And when the 
representative comes back to the district for re-elec- 
tion he talks of the honest farmer and sturdy yeo- 
man, and every one feels that the account is square. 
There is no use in getting angry at this, for the 
fault is wholly with the farmer. The politician 
knows perfectly well that in dealing* with the farmer 
he is dealing with individuals, and with individuals 
who are divided into many different classes — even 
by their own societies, which number about 5,000 
distinct organizations — by political and sectional 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 31 

prejudices. But he knows quite as well that when a 
capitalist or a labor leader calls on him at Washing- 
ton he has back of him a great and powerful organi- 
zation which is able and ready to punish its foes and 
reward its friends. He has learned, too, that the 
farmer can be made to believe that he himself is pro- 
tected by the very taxes that are levied on him for the 
benefit of others. But the main point now to be con- 
sidered is, that the farmers are isolated, and incapa- 
ble of concert of action. In these days men do not 
get things unless they go after them. The farmers 
do not go after them, and so they do not get them. 
Men in public life have to be coerced or persecuted 
into doing things. It is so much easier to drift 
along without doing things, that the statesman, who 
is always looking for the line of least resistance, is 
never disposed to champion any cause that demands 
affirmative action, unless the representatives of that 
cause force it on his attention. It 'is easy to ignore 
and forget the farmer on the lonely and far-distant 
prairie. It is not easy to ignore the rich lobbyist and 
his champagne and terrapin, in Washington. 

My purpose in all this is, frankly, to make the 
farmer discontented, not so much with conditions 
as with himself for allowing them to exist. Discon- 
tent breeds action; action, investigation; investiga- 
tion, knowledge; knowledge, the remedy. There- 
fore, be discontented. Here we have a class of men, 
the most numerous in the country, who fail to get 
what they ought to have, simply because they do not 



32 THE THIRD POWER 

combine to get it. Farmers should not have any* 
thing to which they are not entitled. And it is not 
the intention of the writer to array them against 
their brethren of the capitalistic and labor classes. 
All that is desired is that the farmer should profit 
by the example set by these other classes. The de- 
mand is for equity and nothing more. And equity 
for one is equity for all. The farmer can not be 
truly prosperous without benefiting the whole coun- 
try. The country can not be prosperous without 
the farmer is prosperous. Keep the farmer prosper- 
ous and we can not have hard times. So the cause 
of the farmer is the cause of the nation, and of every 
citizen of the nation. Prosperity begins and ends 
on the farms. Therefore, keep the farmers prosper- 
ous. Keep the source of prosperity pure and strong, 
so it will flow a powerful stream that will invigorate 
every industry. 

Having shown how organization helps the capi- 
talist and the workingman in their relations with 
the business of government, it is now necessary to 
show how it helps them in the ordinary conduct of 
their own private business. The threshermen afford 
an excellent illustration. Recently in Indiana they 
have been asking and getting six or seven cents a 
bushel for threshing wheat. The threshermen have 
an exceedingly effective organization, and it makes 
the price for threshing wheat. The farmers have 
to pay it. The question is not whether or not it is 
fair, but whether the threshermen can compel their 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 33 

customers to pay it. Feeling that the price was too 
high, some farmers recently tried to buy threshers 
and thresh their own grain, but they were told by 
the manufacturers that they would sell machines 
only to members of the threshers' association. Thus 
the farmer is confronted, not only by the threshers' 
association, but by a partial combination between 
that and the threshing machine manufacturers. 
Again it is a case of the organized against the un- 
organized, and, as always happens, the unorganized 
lose. They must lose. The farmers pay prices fixed 
by others, and they sell at prices fixed by others. 
There is neither equity nor common sense in this, 
but they are slaves to the system and will be until 
they can pass it along. 

So the appeal is to the Third Power to become a 
real power, to the end that it may make itself felt 
for the good of all the people. If it is right for the 
thresher to say what he will charge for threshing the 
farmer's wheat, it is right for the farmer to say 
what he will charge for his wheat. It is at least not 
equity for the farmer both to buy and sell at prices 
made by others. If we admit that it is right for 
those who sell to the farmer to fix the prices at 
which they sell, and we don't dispute it, we must 
also admit that it is right for the farmer to fix the 
prices at which others shall buy from him. But 
really it is not a question of right at all — it is a ques- 
tion of power. If the farmer is to free himself from 
the compulsion to which he is now subjected, he 
3 



34 THE THIRD POWER 

must do so by his own act. And it is better so. A 
prosperity won by one's own effort is better and 
more securely based than that created and guaran- 
teed by government. The solution of the problem 
is not to be found in Washington, but on the farm. 
There is no need to ask for favors. The politicians 
can not greatly help, and we don't propose to call 
on them. The farmers organized, and pricing their 
own products, will be so strong in the control of the 
food and clothing of the world, which the other peo- 
ple must have, that they can put any price on them 
that they want to. Thus they can meet prices, ex- 
penses, and taxes, imposed by others. The farmers 
organized, don't need to care whether there is poli- 
tics or not, nor how much they are taxed only in 
so far as they may be interested in another class — 
the consumers. Nothing should be asked of the 
politician except treatment that will make it possible 
to deal equitably with others. It is clear that the 
farmers need not look to lawmakers, Divine Provi- 
dence or anywhere but themselves. 

It has been said of the Irish people that they have 
fought successfully in all battles except their own. 
This is largely true of the farmers. They have la- 
bored and struggled and paid taxes for others, and 
upon their intelligence, industry, and thrift, to-day 
depend the welfare and prosperity of the nation. 
The farmers in the United States have been the sol- 
diers of civilization. They have reduced a wilder- 
ness to subjection, and have made it a fruitful 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 35 

garden. They have endured loneliness, hardship, 
severe toil, privation and hunger, in order that 
others might be fed. Our export trade, of which 
we boast so much, and which has indeed attained 
tremendous proportions, has been swelled by the 
fruits of the labors of the husbandman. The fac- 
tory, the railroad and the mine all live off the farm. 
We talk of labor as the source of all wealth, and so 
it is — but it is the labor of the farmer. And yet we 
find that, after all these years these men on the firing 
line of our American civilization, who should be the 
most independent men in the world, are dependent 
on the captains of industry, the promoter, the under- 
writer, the labor leader, and the grain gambler. It 
is time to end this dependence. And unless the 
American farmer rouses himself, he will have to al- 
ways be content to have his business controlled by 
others, to be called a "jay" a "rube" or "hayseed," 
and to see himself caricatured in the comic papers 
and on the stage as the ridiculous victim of the 
gold-brick swindler and the hay-fork note pedler, 
and indeed no gold-brick swindle was ever so palpa- 
ble as that which is inherent in our present indus- 
trial organization. The Third Power can end it 
when it becomes a real power, 



CHAPTER IV 

Come shoulder to shoulder, 

Ere earth grows older ! 
The cause spreads over land and sea. 

Now the earth shaketh, 

And fear awaketh, 
But joy at last for you and me. 

— William Morris. 

But why, it may be asked, should the speculators 
and the moneyed men, the bankers, manufactur- 
ers, railroad people, etc., object to the organiza- 
tion of the farmers ? There are many reasons, each 
one of which, however, is an argument in favor of 
the organization when considered from the farmer's 
point of view. Suppose some fall Mr. Hill or Mr. 
Leeds were to back his cars up into the wheat coun- 
try, after having made every arrangement to trans- 
port the crop, and should find that there was no 
wheat to carry; and suppose the railroad president 
should find that the farmers had all resolved that 
they would not let go of their wheat for less than 
a dollar a bushel. If this resolution were backed 
by a national organization, the consequences for the 
railroad and the consumers would not be pleasant. 
The effect on stocks would be disastrous, and a 

36 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 37 

panic would surely follow. That is, unless con- 
cessions were made to the farmer. And as the capi- 
talists and speculators think they don't want to make 
concessions to the farmer, they would intensely dis- 
like being put in a position where they would have to 
make them or suffer ruin. 

Every one that has a grip on the farmer, who sells 
to the farmer at exorbitant prices — all would find 
that their grip was broken, and that on the contrary 
the farmer had the upper hand. 

The mere shifting of power from the few to the 
many would be enough to rouse opposition on the 
part of the few. Oligarchies always hate democ- 
racies. The four or five men who now fix railroad 
freights throughout the country would naturally 
feel that it was an impertinence for the 10,000,000 
farmers to insist on being heard on the subject. 
Those few men may combine to regulate the com- 
merce of a continent, but the farmers may not. 
They think control by the few is right and proper, 
but control by the many is a bad thing. The banker 
might find that with such a combination the farm- 
ers would have to borrow less money, and that they 
would have more to say about the rate of interest 
and the security than they do now. If, when the 
representatives of the organized manufacturers 
went to Washington to demand favors at the ex- 
pense of the people, they found themselves con- 
fronted by a lobby of able and intelligent men repre- 
senting the farmers' organization, the job of push- 



38 THE THIRD POWER 

ing through tariffs might be more arduous than it 
is now. Some of the beggars for tariff taxes might 
actually be" called on to show w T hy they needed them 
and ought to have them. 

As for the speculators, they would not find life 
wholly pleasant under the proposed conditions. 
When, to return to Mr. Norris's book, Curtis Jad- 
win tried to corner the wheat supply, he was beaten 
by the new crop which came pouring in. Here is 
how it happened : 

"And the avalanche, the undyked ocean of the 
wheat, leaping to the lash of the hurricane, struck 
him fairly in the face. He heard it now; he heard 
nothing else. The wheat had broken from his con- 
trol. For months he had, by the might of his single 
arm, held it back ; but now it rose like the upbuilding 
of a colossal billow. It towered, hung, poised for an 
instant, and then with a thunder as of the grind and 
crash of chaotic worlds, broke upon him, burst 
through the pit and raced past him, on and on to the 
eastward and to the hungry nations.'' 

What if the farmers had controlled that "un- 
dyked ocean of the wheat," and had refused to let 
any of the ocean get through the dyke? The price 
would not have broken, and the corner would have 
won. The next deal would have smashed Jadwin. 
And what right had he to control the price of wheat 
for months ? Neither he nor any of his tribe could 
do it if the farmers would assert their power. It 
would be the same way with the stock market. As 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 39 

it is now, a few pirates get hold of some great 
granger road, "merge" it with another, buy the 
roads by paying for them out of their own treas- 
uries, stock and bond them out of all proportion to 
their real value, issue "short-time" notes, and then 
expect them to pay dividends and interest. So rates 
must go up — and they do go up. They combine to 
regulate rates, discriminate against non-competing 
points, and it all comes out of the farmer. The 
legitimate value of the shares depends on the amount 
of business that the roads do, and on the price of 
the stuff they haul. The farmers, I estimate, are 
responsible for three-fourths of the tonnage hauled 
by the railroads and stored in warehouses, yet I 
venture the assertion that not one board of railroad 
and warehouse commissions in all the states has a 
farmer representative. It is on this basis that the 
speculation proceeds. Who would attempt to bear 
the market if he knew that the farmers' combina- 
tion might refuse to send any farm products to 
market? The value of the shares would, as now, 
depend on the earning capacity of the properties, 
but the farmers would have a good deal to say about 
what that earning capacity should be. And this 
would be a great dampener on the speculative spirit. 
Grain and stock gambling would be much less popu- 
lar than they are now. There would be a new and 
controlling element in the problem. And it would 
operate for the good of all. The case of the manu- 
facturer would be much the same. He is, as are 



40 THE THIRD POWER 

we all, interested in selling dear and buying cheap. 
Backed by the government, and assisted by his com- 
bination, he has it in his power to make, or at least 
largely to influence prices. With those to whom he 
sells and from whom he buys unorganized, he occu- 
pies an exceedingly strong position. It would be 
less strong were his customers, the farmers, also 
organized. They might still have to pay the manu- 
facturer's price, but they could, if organized, sell 
at their own price. The manufacturer, as do all the 
rest, "looks with distrust" on any movement look- 
ing to an organization of the farmers. This is nat- 
ural, because all former farmer organizations were 
directed to pull the other person's business down to 
a level with unsatisfactory agriculture. But it is 
different in this movement. Now it is proposed to 
build agriculture up to a level with the best of 
them. Therefore, manufacturers, merchants, bank- 
ers, etc., are needlessly alarmed. In fact, when the 
plan to make the Third Power a real power is under- 
stood they will approve and help it. 

Nor can the political phase of the question be 
disregarded. The tremendous power which organ- 
ization would clothe the farmers with, could not be 
ignored by the government. If the combined agri- 
cultural interests of the country should ask the men 
at Washington to take off a protective duty — even 
though it were for the special benefit of Mr. Mor- 
gan's steel trust — that duty would come off. If the 
demand were made for special legislation in the in- 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 41 

terest of the farmer or the consumer of his products, 
even though it might injure the manufacturer, or 
middleman, that demand would be complied with. 
Were the farmers oreanized, some plan would be 
found for checking the aggressions and extortions 
of the railroad and food trusts. All this is perfectly- 
well understood by the minority that now controls 
the government. Should the farmers think it worth 
while to make any demands for legislation it will 
be more in the interest of the consumers than from 
any necessity on their part. When the farmers co- 
operate and name prices on their own products they 
will be so strong in their fundamental right to price 
our food and clothing products which the balance 
of the world must have that they can meet all ag- 
gressions by others. What matters it if the rail- 
road charges fifty cents a bushel for transporting 
grain to market? The farmers' price of this bushel 
of grain — when the farmers represent the Third 
Power — was made out on the farm before the trans- 
portation company touched it. Therefore, I say, if 
the Third Power concerns itself about legislation, 
taxes, transportations, etc., it will be in the interest 
of the consumers, and to promote the maximum con- 
sumption by preventing the railroads and middle- 
men from imposing unfair rates. On the whole it 
is surprising that any person should oppose the or- 
ganization of the farmers, and sneer at every scheme 
looking toward that end. 

But there is even more in it than this. If there 



42 THE THIRD POWER 

were resistance on the part of any class to the farm- 
er's demand for fair price for his products, and if 
the farmer should refuse to sell them for less, it is 
evident that there would be panic and starvation. 
The farmer can live on what he raises, and can 
even, as he once did, make his own clothes. But 
the men in the banks, the offices and the mills must 
have bread, vegetables, fruit and meat. Suppose 
they could not get them. Pushing the case to this 
last extremity you can easily appreciate the extent 
of the farmer's power, the absolute nature of his 
independence. God rules in Heaven, and the farm- 
ers own the earth. All others are suspended some- 
where between and are absolutely dependent on the 
farmers in this world, as on God in the next. The 
farmer is, or may be, if he chooses, wholly self-sup- 
porting. No other class of the community can be, 
for all men rely, and must rely, on the farmer to 
keep them alive. If he should decline to market, on 
the ground that he was not being paid sufficiently 
for his service, a crisis would be presented with 
which the government would have to concern it- 
self. Yet all the while the farmers would be doing 
nothing that the miners and manufacturers are not 
doing every day. Indeed, they would be doing only 
what other men are now doing with the farmer's 
grain, meat and produce. The only difference is, 
that the farmer's corner would be more complete 
and his control of output and prices, being applied 
to commodities that are absolute essentials, would 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 43 

be more disastrous in its results. But what would 
or could the government do? It could hardly con- 
fiscate farm products, or compel the farmer to sell 
them at prices unsatisfactory to himself. Surely it 
could not compel those men who failed or refused 
to put in crops lest there should be overproduction, 
to cultivate their farms against their will. 

The arbitration question here presented, if it is 
a question at all, would be one far more difficult 
than that between the anthracite miners and oper- 
ators which President Roosevelt arranged for, and 
practically compelled. The government could not 
destroy the farmers' organization and continue to 
permit capitalists and workingmen to organize. 

The difficulty would in all probability be adjusted 
either by fair compromise, or by a complete yield- 
ing to the demands of the farmers. But the problem 
would not be solved. On the contrary, the govern- 
ment would have had such a warning as would 
drive it into the adoption of a just policy. Theo- 
retically we have the most just government in the 
world. The preamble of the constitution reads 
thus : 

"We, the people of the United States, in order to 
form a more perfect union, establish justice, in- 
sure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common 
defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the 
blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, 
do ordain and establish this constitution for the 
United States of America." 



44 THE THIRD POWER 

"To establish justice" — this is one of the pur- 
poses which our forefathers had in view in adopt- 
ing the constitution. If it is found that justice has 
not been established, it must be either that the con- 
stitution is defective, or else that we have been false 
to its principles. It makes no difference which of 
these alternatives be true, the fact remains that our 
government at the present time is not conducted in 
accordance with justice and equity. It has too many 
favorites, and among those favorites the farmer is 
not found. He is taxed, not only for the support of 
the government, but for the benefit of others of his 
fellow citizens, who are not taxed for his benefit. 
As taxes are levied on land and as land can not be 
hidden from the taxgatherers, it follows that he pays 
proportionately more taxes than do those whose 
wealth is in money or stocks or bonds, which can be 
hidden. Under our constitution has grown up a 
system of laws which favor the corporations and 
trusts at the expense of the individual. And it has 
come to pass that our government is weaker than its 
citizens. The combination of politicians, speculators 
and corporations controls the government — nay, is 
the government. 

The powerlessness of the central authority would 
be brought home to all men in such a struggle as 
that between those wanting to buy farm products 
(food and clothing) and those refusing to sell 
them. The people would demand that their govern- 
ment should at least be as strong as its most power- 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 45 

ful citizens, or as the most powerful combination of 
citizens. Then it would be able to do equal justice 
to all. And we should all realize that justice pays — 
indeed that it is essential to the perpetuity of our 
institutions. So, without doing one illegal thing, 
or making a single demand on the government, the 
farmers could, were they organized, work such a 
radical and wholesome reform as would transform 
our whole social order. All the people — and that is 
what the government ought to be, and in theory is 
— might conclude to fix a minimum price for the 
necessaries of life, and say that no one should be 
compelled to sell for less than that price, or that, 
if the crisis were grave, any one who offered that 
price should get the commodities. At least the gov- 
ernment would realize that it could not afford to be 
unjust to the farmers, the most numerous class in 
the country. If we are to have a class government 
at all, and this ought not to be, we should have a 
government of the largest and most influential class. 
If we are to have favoritism, it should be favorit- 
ism, not for the minority, but for the majority. If 
it be said that the scheme involves socialism, the 
answer is that socialism for the many would be 
better than socialism for the few. If the govern- 
ment helps the manufacturer to make prices which 
are often exorbitant — as it does by imposing tariff 
taxes — it surely might help the farmer make prices 
that are fair and just. So the result of the effort of 
the farmers to organize to control their own busi- 



46 THE THIRD POWER 

ness might easily have the effect of forcing reforms 
all along the line, and I predict it will have. Hence, 
hasten the farmers' organization — the Third Power 
— the equitable government. 



CHAPTER V 

UNITE, O LOYAL FARMERS 

Unite, O loyal farmers, 

Beneath the banner true 
Of equity and justice, 

That shall thy foes subdue. 
Cooperate with others, 

And helped by numbers' might, 
Go forward into battle 

For liberty and right. 

Unite, O loyal farmers, 

Fear not the active foe ; 
The right shall ever conquer 

For those who reap and sow. 
Fair Justice, ever smiling, 

Holds out her hands to all 
Who follow in her footsteps, 

In answer to her call. 

Unite, O loyal farmers, 

Waste not your time in rest, 
Nor talk of mighty efforts 

If money you possessed ; 
But seek for higher prices, 

Reward for toil and care, 
Let nothing you discourage, 

But all things do and dare. 

Unite, O loyal farmers, 
And in one happy band 

Press onward for the conquest 
Of this, your native land. 

47 



48 THE THIRD POWER 

O let your watchword ever 

Be Equity for all ; 
Unite and quickly level 

Oppression's mighty wall. 

Unite, O loyal farmers, 

Press on — press on to-day; 
The time is ripe for action, 

Let nothing you dismay; 
For victory is coming, 

To those who brave the wrong 
And push with earnest vigor 

The cause of truth along. 

— EMe Stevens. 



It has been said, and it is not surprising, that 
those who are now more or less in partnership with 
the government, should oppose and sneer at this 
effort to organize the farmers. And yet there is no 
good or honest reason why they should not welcome 
it and cooperate with it. For its purpose is not to 
help any one class at the expense of the others, but 
by helping one class, which is now neglected, to 
help all, and to improve the general social and busi- 
ness conditions. It has been said that the country 
could not prosper unless the farmers prosper, and 
that the farmers could not prosper without benefit- 
ing all other classes. Neither of the statements can 
be denied or doubted. So the real reason why this 
movement is opposed is, that the men who oppose 
it are getting special privileges from the govern- 
ment, and they know that these would be taken from 
them when the Third Power compelled an equitable 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 49 

government. The fear is, not that the farmers 
would be unjust, but that they would insist on equal 
and exact justice to all. And justice is the last 
thing that the corporation trust magnates, graft 
gatherers and the tariff-pampered manufacturers 
want under the present system. Many men in this 
country at the present time thrive on inequity, and 
so they do not want the present arrangement dis- 
turbed. 

The man who both buys and sells grain or other 
produce at prices made, not by the owners but by 
himself, knows well enough that he would have no 
just cause for complaint if the farmer made the 
prices on the farm. But he does not want this, be- 
cause he thinks it would interfere with his own 
game, and would curtail or destroy his profits. But 
he may be mistaken, as a certain profit would be 
better than an uncertain one. So the protected 
manufacturer, who buys in a free trade market and 
sells in a protected one, thinks he does not care to 
have the farmer share in that advantage. To his 
mind there is nothing wrong in compelling the 
farmer to pay tariff-raised prices on all that he uses, 
and to sell his products at free trade prices, and in 
competition with the whole world. The banker 
favors cooperation between himself and the farmer 
which shall enable the banker to fix the rate of in- 
terest which the farmer shall pay, but he thinks he 
would not like to have the farmers cooperate with 
one another so that they might become their own 
4 



50 THE THIRD POWER 

bankers or put themselves in condition that they 
don't need to borrow. The combined railroads, 
which, subject to the slight restraints (?) imposed 
by the Interstate Commerce Commission, fix the rates 
on farm produce, will no doubt object to a combina- 
tion among the farmers to secure equitable rates, 
a fair price for their crops and regulate their move- 
ment to market. Even the trade-unions, which 
vociferously, and often violently, assert the right of 
their members to say what wages they shall be paid, 
and who subject the country to great inconvenience 
and even suffering in the struggle to carry their 
point, might be disposed to deny the farmers the 
right to combine for their own protection and in- 
dependence, on the ground that it might advance the 
price of living. Always this desire to secure an un- 
fair advantage, or an advantage at the expense of 
some one else, develops opposition to an organiza- 
tion among the farmers. 

But, as has been said, there is no good and honest 
ground for any such objection. For the farmers 
propose to demand nothing that is unfair, unjust or 
dishonorable, nothing that it would not benefit all 
classes for them to have. To illustrate : If farmers 
organize and put profitable prices on their crops, 
they will have more money to spend for labor and 
every necessary and many of the luxuries of life. 
It is only the profit that may safely be spent. There- 
fore, more profit — margin — to the farmers will bene- 
fit the country merchant, bankers, professional men, 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 51 

etc. They intend to put such a price on their pro- 
ducts that they can hire the best help in the country. 
Thus the demand for union labor will be increased 
by millions. The illustrations might be carried out 
indefinitely ; but what the use ? If unfair advantages 
are cut off, or other classes built up to a level, though 
the class enjoying them would lose something, it 
would lose nothing to which it was entitled, and 
everybody would be benefited. This government 
can not continue half just and half unjust, any more 
than it could be half slave and half free. Indeed, 
injustice involves slavery, for the man who is the 
victim of injustice is the slave of him who profits 
by it. Thus the question is one of emancipation 
quite as much as it was forty years ago. So it is 
proposed to raise up this Third Power as the de- 
fender and champion of liberty. The man who is 
forced to pay one dollar more for an article than it is 
fairly worth, or to sell it for a dollar less than it is 
worth, is to the extent of that dollar a slave. The toil 
represented in that extra dollar is as truly slave 
labor as was the toil of the black man forty years 
ago, or that of the miserable peon in the Alabama 
cotton-fields at the present time. And how can the 
American farmer, who is grandiloquently spoken of 
by campaign orators as the freest man on earth, 
be free at all, in any proper sense, when he is com- 
pelled to market the fruits of his hard labor at 
prices made by some one else, who frequently enjoys, 
at the hands of the government, an advantage that 



52 THE THIRD POWER 

the farmer does not enjoy? Many fantastic schemes 
have been devised for the emancipation of the Amer- 
ican farmer, but they have all had one fundamental 
defect in that they looked in the first instance to the 
government instead of the farmer himself. Xo peo- 
ple was ever freed except by its own exertions. 

"Who would be free themselves must strike the 
blow." 

So this appeal is not to the government, not to 
the politicians, not even to the law, but to the farm- 
ers themselves. If they show themselves worthy of 
the blessings which they crave, they can get them. 
The demand is not for government warehouses, 
free silver, unlimited issues of paper money, loans 
from the treasury on crops or land, duties on farm 
products, or even for the better regulation of trusts 
and corporations, but simply for the use of the power 
which the farmers have to help themselves. The 
question is whether they are patriotic enough, in- 
telligent enough, self-restrained enough, determined 
enough, and wisely selfish enough, simply to put out 
their hands and pluck the fruit which hangs within 
easy reach of their grasp. They, in the beginning 
at least, need no help from any one. Governments 
are like God in one particular, in that they help 
those who help themselves. When people generally, 
and the politicians in particular, see that the farmers 
are in earnest about this business they will promptly 
cooperate. The farmers will find that they have as 
many real friends as they now have pretended ones. 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 53 

Success will bring unexpected allies, and will un- 
cover and discomfit secret enemies. Would the 
American colonists ever have won their freedom if 
they had waited for France to begin the struggle? 
Nay, rather did not France withhold her aid till she 
was convinced that the colonists could win their 
freedom even without her aid? The Cuban patriots 
battled for a generation before our great republic, at 
last convinced that there could be no peace till Spain 
was driven from the island, intervened in behalf of 
Cuban freedom and independence. English liber- 
ties are the product of centuries of toil and fight, 
and it was the French people that won liberty for 
France and maintained it against combined Europe. 
So the American farmer must not whine, and beg, 
and supplicate, must not rely on politics and poli- 
ticians, nor even on Divine Providence wholly, but 
must, as others have done, fight his own battles. 
The victory is sure. And when it is won, as won it 
will be, it will be found that all will be benefited. 
So it is true that no American freeman, able and 
willing to support himself without bonuses or sub- 
sidies from the government, and without the protec- 
tion of unfair and unjust laws, loving justice and 
fair play, and asking for nothing more than is 
rightly his — an honest reward for honest toil — need 
have the slightest apprehension about this move- 
ment for the organization of the farmers. The beg- 
gars, the preyers on other men's wealth, the par- 
asites, the government pets, the grafters, the bood- 



54 THE THIRD POWER 

lers, and all who look on government as an instru- 
mentality for their own enrichment, may well be 
disturbed. But there is no warfare to be waged 
against the rights even of these. We want to take 
the broad and manly view of this movement. It is 
not a grab for privileges, or a war of reprisal, but 
simply a firm and resolute stand for justice and 
equity. The farmers are not going to ask any one 
to give them something. They are merely going 
to take what is theirs. The Third Power, represent- 
ing the divinely established business of agriculture, 
when it is organized, will not need to ask favors; 
it will only have to insist on rights. Favors it does 
not want or expect. Rights it will have. 



CHAPTER VI 

A NEW REBELLION 

One hundred years and more ago, when America was young, 
And writhing 'neath the tyrant's chain, the cruel oppressor's 

wrong ; 
Her gallant sons for freedom's sake went at the country's call, 
And faced the cannon's shot and shell to bravely fight or fall. 

They fought and bled for liberty, that this fair land of ours, 
Might throw the tyrant's shackles by, yield but to higher pow- 
ers. 
They fought the fight, in God's good time they won the victory, 
They laid the gory saber down and called their children free. 

But are we free, does the sun in Heav'n look down on men to- 
day, 
Freed from all bonds of slavery, who own no tyrant's sway ? 
Do they tread America's standard soil all equals in her sight, 
All sharers in her bounty under Equity and right? 

Go ask the busy farmer there, who toils from sun to sun, 
If he enjoys that liberty, the right of such an one. 
He'll tell you that there still remains injustice in the land, 
That foul oppression grinds the sons of toil on every hand. 

The farmer knows no liberty, for Power holds the reins ; 
He has to take the leavings after others count their gains. 
His fruits of labor are controlled by grinding Capital, 
And he is deemed a servant who, in fact, is king of all. 

To arms, to arms ! then men of brawn, you won the battle once, 
Gird on your shining armor now and rally to the front ! 
Take freedom for your battle-cry, your watchword Equity, 
And make the tyrant tremble when your ready sword they see ! 

55 



56 THE THIRD POWER 

Fear not though you have tried and failed for lack of Union 

strong, 
Cooperation will succeed and right will conquer wrong. 
Think you that our forefathers quailed when foemen charged 

the field? 
They bravely met each sharp attack and would not, did not 

yield. 

Then, farmers, rise in all your might and strike for liberty; 

Demand your rights in unity, then call this nation free. 

Put forth your earnest efforts in this grand and glorious 

fight, 
Associate, then work and pray, and God will guard the right. 

— Maude E. Smith Hymers. 



A little further elaboration of the general help- 
fulness of the proposed plan may help to a better 
understanding of it. It has been said that the farm- 
ers could not be prosperous without benefiting all 
classes, and that prosperity of the country depends 
on the prosperity of the farmer. No one doubts the 
truth of these statements. They have a very im- 
portant bearing on this argument. For if they are 
true, as they are, it must follow that a movement to 
better the condition of the farmers will be in the in- 
terest of all. And this is precisely the point that I 
desire to emphasize. For, unless it is made clear, 
the impression may prevail that we are making war 
on other classes and trying to seek an advantage at 
their expense. The further we get into the case the 
more obvious will it become that this is not the pur- 
pose at all. 

What do the stock speculators mean when they 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 57 

say that the prosperity of the country depends on the 
well-being of the agricultural class? Simply that 
that class is the largest in the community, that all 
others depend on it, that our farm produce is our 
greatest national asset, and that a bad condition 
here is a national calamity. Foreign trade, railroad 
earnings, the price of stocks, bank deposits, wages, 
and of course the welfare of all the industries di- 
rectly dependent on the farm, are all affected by the 
condition of agriculture. Prices are largely regu- 
lated by the ability of the farmers to buy. Thus, all 
our business and industry are based on the farm — 
it is the foundation on which the whole structure 
rests. Is it not clear that it is to the interest of all 
that that foundation should be solid and substan- 
tial? 

Look at the matter in another way. The farming 
class is the greatest consuming class in the country. 
When it, through stress of circumstances, is driven 
to rigid economy, sales fall off, stocks accumulate 
in factory and store, prices decline, collections are 
bad, there is less available capital to loan, money 
gets tight just when it is most needed, and we all 
feel the pinch. Luxuries are dispensed with. There 
are fewer pianos and organs in the houses of the 
farmers, fewer pictures on the wall, fewer books and 
newspapers bought. The farmer and his family 
make the old clothes do for another year instead of 
buying new ones. Farms are allowed to run down, 
either because their owners can not afford to keep 



58 THE THIRD POWER 

them up, or because they do not think it worth while. 
Improvements are not made; less machines are 
bought, and fewer hands employed, and finally the 
gains of former years are wiped out, then comes the 
mortgage, and the whole process of reconstruction 
has to be gone through with again. In the mean- 
time the whole country suffers. It is all the result 
of a diminished consumption on the part of the 
farmers, brought about by large crops and low 
prices. With the farmer out of the market, or in it 
only to a limited extent, the market is bound to 
suffer, and all industries be harmed. 

The first thing that the merchant wants to know, 
when he sends his commercial travelers out to the 
smaller towns, is whether the farmers are buying, 
and whether they are paying their bills promptly. 
The credit to be extended to the local merchant de- 
pends largely on the financial condition of the farm- 
ers. If they are buying liberally, and paying their 
bills with reasonable promptness, the city merchant 
knows that he can afford to sell larger bills of goods 
to the local dealer, and give him better terms than 
he could do under other circumstances. All this is 
elementary, and yet we often forget it. We seem 
to feel that prosperity is maintained solely by the 
buying of the rich people in the cities who are so 
lavish with their money. But it is not so. The 
farmers are the great consumers, and when they 
cease to buy, or curtail their expenditures, they not 
only limit the market by just that much, but they 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 59 

lessen the power of people in the cities to buy. 
Smaller stocks in the stores mean a smaller output 
from the mills and factories, and that means re- 
duction of wages and of the labor force. So the 
working man consumes less. So, too, less freight is 
hauled, earnings and wages fall off in the railroad 
industry, and consumption again suffers. Thus 
the farmer is inextricably bound up with all other 
classes of society. 

Looking at the question, therefore, from the non- 
farmer point of view, we see that it is one of main- 
taining and increasing the consuming power of the 
farmer, which is equivalent to the maintaining and 
increasing of the general consuming power. And 
that is a result which all are interested in bringing 
about. Thus this movement is not for the good of 
the farmer alone, but for the good of all — the good 
of the whole country. To regard it in any other 
way would be singularly to misapprehend it. 

The name of the organization which is now in 
process of forming, and which will make the Third 
Power a real power is The American Society of 
Equity. It is not a farmers' society only, but an 
American society — that is, for all good Americans 
who want to see better conditions prevail on the 
farm. It is not a benefit society, but an equity so- 
ciety. Benefits are always for an individual or 
class, while equity is for all. Indeed, it can not be 
equitable unless it is for all. Equity for one and 
not for another is not equity, but inequity. It is a 



60 THE THIRD POWER 

society that knows no state bounds ; one that reaches 
from one side of the agricultural region to the other ; 
one that every farmer can join, and be the better for 
joining. So when we propose to organize and se- 
cure fair prices for the farmer, it is not simply that 
he may be benefited, but that all may be benefited, 
and it has been shown that all would be benefited. 
To demand more than a fair price would be inequita- 
ble, and so is not to be thought of. Fair wages for 
a fair day's work, fair profits for the manufacturer, 
fair interest for the capitalist, fair prices to the 
consumers, and fair values for the products of the 
farm — this is equity. It is important that this 
should be thoroughly understood. For the attempt 
will be made, indeed it has already been made, to 
make it appear that the farmer is proposing to rob 
others for his own enrichment. This has been the 
method used by other classes, and it is not surpris- 
ing that those who have practiced it should think 
that the farmers are going to adopt it. In fact, un- 
fairness is so prevalent in commercial enterprises 
that every movement is looked upon with suspicion. 
The outsiders begin to look for the hook that will 
catch them. The golden rule, "Do unto others as 
you would have them do unto you," is interpreted 
to-day, "Do him before he has a chance to do you." 
But it is not so with this society. The name and 
purpose of the society alike forbid it. It is an old 
maxim that those who seek equity should do equity. 
They are fortunate in being in such a position that 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 61 

nothing can benefit or help them which will not help 
and benefit all others. So they are not subjected 
to the temptation to prey on others to which other 
classes have yielded. If they would put their prices 
too high they would curtail consumption. Hence, 
how reasonable then that they will do everything 
possible to secure the maximum market. In fact, 
this is one of the leading reasons for organizing 
and one of the principal objects of the society. If 
the Third Power controls the other powers it will 
be only because it is the biggest and most essential 
to the national welfare, and so ought to control. 
But it will be ruled by equity, and in and by seek- 
ing its own good it will, even admitting that it may 
not mean to do so, seek the good of others. There- 
fore, there is no reason why it should be antagonized 
and feared by any legitimate interest or industry. 
Rather it should have the cordial and friendly co- 
operation of all who want to see freedom and in- 
dependence, peace and happiness, truth and equity, 
religion and piety established among the people of 
the earth. 



CHAPTER VII 

CLEAR THE WAY 

Men of thought ! be up and stirring night and day ! 
Sow the seed ! withdraw the curtain ! clear the way ! 

There's a fount about to stream ; 

There's a light about to beam ; 

There's a warmth about to glow ; 

There's a flower about to blow ; 
There's a midnight darkness changing into gray. 
Men of thought, and men of action, clear the way ! 

Once the welcome light has broken, who shall say 
What the unimagined glories of the day ? 
What the evils that shall perish in its ray? 

Aid the daring, tongue and pen ! 

Aid it, hope of honest men ! 

Aid it, paper ! aid it, type ! 

Aid it, for the hour is ripe ! 
And our efforts must not slacken into play. 
Men of thought, and men of action, clear the way ! 

Lo, a cloud's about to vanish from the day ! 
Lo, the right's about to conquer ; clear the way ! 
And a broken wrong to crumble into clay. 

With that right shall many more 

Enter smiling at the door. 

With that giant wrong shall fall 

Many others, great and small, 
That for ages long have held us for their prey. 
Men of thought, and men of action, clear the way ! 

— Charles Mackay. 
62 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 63 

It is, of course, obvious to all that the price of 
farm products bears little or no relation to the cost 
of producing them. Wheat may range in price 
from $0.50 to $1.00 a bushel, and yet it costs the 
farmers as much to raise it in years of low as in 
years of high prices. Fifty-cent wheat may even 
cost more to produce than dollar wheat. For the 
lower price indicates an abundant crop, and this 
means that the demand for labor is great, and that 
consequently wages of farm laborers are high; but 
the point is that there is no fixed and established 
relation between the cost of production and price. 
Surely there should be. The consumption of farm 
products is reasonably uniform from year to year, 
and there is not often any great decline in consump- 
tion that would account for low prices. There is 
little or no fluctuation in demand, no real surplus, 
and the cost of production is a fairly constant 
quantity. Yet prices have a wide range. 

Of course, it will be said that they are regulated 
by supply and demand — and how often have we 
heard that phrase; it is used very glibly by many 
men who have no knowledge whatever of its mean- 
ing. Let us try and find out what it does mean. 
Demand and supply are really the same thing — or 
at least they are the two faces of the same fact. 
Money in the hands of the man wanting wheat is 
supply, while wheat is what he demands. The 
farmer, on the other hand, demands money and sup- 
plies wheat. This would be clear if there were no 



64 THE THIRD POWER 

money in the world, and if all trade were carried on 
by barter. Then all the goods in the country would 
be both supply and demand. It is only when we 
measure goods against money that we come to look 
on money as demand and goods as supply. So 
the farmer demands money and supplies wheat, 
while the miller demands wheat and supplies money. 
So the law of supply and demand describes the 
working of a force that is not so simple and easily 
understood as we may at first think. 

Again, we talk of demand equaling supply, or of 
supply equaling demand. This means absolutely 
nothing unless we take into account the question of 
price. An increase of price will affect both supply 
and demand, increasing the former and lessening the 
latter. And this brings us to the main point to be 
noted in this connection, and that is, that the force 
under consideration is not a great natural force 
above and beyond the power of man to regulate or 
control. We may say that the price of harvesters is 
regulated by the law of supply and demand, and so 
it is. But the men who make them control the sup- 
ply and manufacture no more of them than they 
think can be disposed of at a good profit. Further, 
by raising or lowering the price they can, and do, 
temporarily influence the demand for harvesters. 
And here is the thing to be borne in mind. We may 
admit that the price of farm products is, or should 
be regulated by supply and demand, or, better still, 
by production and consumption, but still it is true 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 65 

that the farmer has — or may and should have — the 
power to say what the supply shall be. A controlled 
supply is as much within his power as it is in the 
power of the manufacturer. So when some amateur 
political economist talks to you learnedly about the 
law of supply and demand, tell him that you propose 
to make that law work for you instead of against 
you. Coal is mined and marketed under the law 
of supply and demand, but when the anthracite bar- 
ons think that the demand is not sufficient to absorb 
their coal at the right price, although there are mil- 
lions of tons down in the mines, they shut off the 
supply. If the price is too low they raise it at the 
rate of fifty cents a ton a month. The farmers may 
do the same thing, if they will. Supply and demand, 
certainly, — but they can make the supply large or 
small at pleasure, or withhold it altogether. And 
you may play upon demand by raising or lowering 
the price of your products as you see fit. Yet, always 
keep in mind that as much food and clothing will be 
consumed at a fair price as at an unduly low price. 

So the man can not be left out of the problem. 
And that is something that you must never forget. 
There would be no supply of farm products at all 
except for the intelligent work of the farmers. From 
their partnership with the earth flow these assets 
that we all value so highly. Supply is a human 
product, not a natural growth like breadfruit. It 
must be adjusted and regulated at all times to the 
demand, but only at a price that is fair to both par- 



66 THE THIRD POWER 

ties to the trade, not a temporary over-supply at 
times to force prices down, nor a scarcity at others 
to force prices up. The plea is that these adjust- 
ments should be made by the farmers, inasmuch as 
the supply is theirs, and they are the only ones that 
can make the adjustment in a way to benefit all. 
And in making it they must consider, first of all, the 
cost of production — that is, what they pay for corn, 
wheat and cotton, fruit, vegetables, dairy and poul- 
try products, etc., in investments, toil, pain, absti- 
nence and self-sacrifice. We see how it is in other 
departments of industry. Wages are regulated, we 
may say, by the law of supply and demand. Yet 
trade-unions control, to no small extent, the num- 
ber of laborers — thus regulating the supply. And 
they strain themselves to the uttermost to keep the 
supply of laborers small enough to insure good 
wages. The capitalist, on the other hand, determines 
to a considerable extent the amount of capital avail- 
able for the payment of wages, and endeavors to les- 
sen the competition for laborers. Both these classes 
influence, in a marked degree, both supply and de- 
mand. Why should not the farmer do the same ? 

So do not allow yourselves to be deceived by the 
talk about supply and demand. What you have to 
decide is whether you are getting prices properly 
proportionate to the cost of production. It is clear 
that often you do not. Indeed, cost of production 
is the last thing that you, and those who buy from 
you, take into account. If wheat at one dollar only 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 67 

sufficiently compensates you, it is evident that wheat 
at fifty cents does not. There is no natural or eco- 
nomic reason for such fluctuations. They have a 
bad effect in many ways. Who can make any defi- 
nite calculation on such a basis as this ? Here is the 
secret of the failure of many farmers to make needed 
improvements. The owner is afraid to undertake 
improvements for fear prices will fall, and he may 
not be able to pay for them. What would you think 
of a manufacturing business which sold plows this 
year for fifteen dollars, but which was haunted by 
the fear that, the cost of production remaining pre- 
cisely the same, it might have to sell plows next year 
for seven dollars? The business simply could not 
go on. It would be impossible for the proprietor to 
figure on prices, wages or raw material. Profits 
would be as uncertain and problematical as they now 
are in the farming business. It is so in farming, 
which, after all, is manufacturing. The farmer is 
capitalist, laborer, manufacturer, scientist and land- 
owner, so that all the forces of production are com- 
bined in him. The earth is his factory, the plant 
food his raw material, the plant his machine, and 
the crop his finished product. Yet, though he is the 
supreme producer, and though all the forces of pro- 
duction center in him, he is, under present conditions, 
the most powerless of all producers, and the only 
one who takes no account of the cost of production. 
Is it not time that he asserted himself? He must 
quit increasing the supply extravagantly and to his 



68 THE THIRD POWER 

own hurt, and insist that the price at which he sells 
shall be such as to earn him a fair profit, year in and 
year out, over and above the cost of production. He 
can not do this by himself. So here, again, organ- 
ization is absolutely necessary. 

To illustrate more forcibly the need of regulating 
prices, we will say that, always, the larger the crops 
the lower the prices. Frequently the largest crops 
sell for the least bulk money, and vice versa, the 
smallest crops bring the farmers the most money. 
This is proven in the corn crop of 1901. It was the 
smallest this country raised for many years, yet it 
brought to the farmers more money than any other 
corn crop except the one of 1902. This latter crop 
was the largest ever raised ; it had the advantage of 
high price established by the preceding shortest crop, 
yet sold for comparatively little more than the short 
one. This condition is also illustrated by potatoes. 
In 1895 tms country raised the largest crop in its 
history, and they sold for only about half the money 
as did the crop of 1901, which was the smallest for* 
many years. The same is true of wheat, oats, cotton, 
fruit and other crops. An enterprise which is sub- 
ject to such wide, violent irregularities can not be 
healthy, and a system which makes them possible is 
bad and vicious. Any person who will take the 
trouble to study the crop statistics will be convinced 
that something is wrong. It is clear from this show- 
ing that it is the large crops and low prices that are 
a menace to the farmers — consequently the nation's 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 69 

prosperity. Short crops will make good prices for 
themselves, as then the buyers go to the farm seek- 
ing them, and the farmers can price them. 

By organization and cooperation the temporary 
surplus of any crop can be controlled — held on the 
farm — and the same conditions produced as when 
the crop is small. All that is necessary to do to make 
prices on the farm is to control that part, which, at 
times, overstocks the market, and which fixes prices 
on all. In other words, to keep the market in a seek- 
ing condition. We claim that as much of our food 
products will be consumed at a fair price to the 
farmer as at an unfairly low price. The cities are 
fairly reveling in prosperity. Labor is better paid 
now than ever before; manufactured goods sell 
higher than ever before. Therefore, the consumers 
off of the farm should pay a fair price for their food, 
even though it leaves them a little less for luxuries ; 
but we don't believe it will be necessary for the con- 
sumer to pay more. The advent of the Third Power 
will beneficially affect distribution of farm products 
and cut down the mountains of profits realized by 
unfair middlemen between the producers and con- 
sumers. The success of the farmers' movement will 
guarantee an equitable price to the farmers, a fair 
margin to the middleman, lower prices to the con- 
sumer, and a larger market for all farm products. 
By removing the uncertainties of prices, encouraging 
free buying and selling on certain and legitimate 



70 THE THIRD POWER 

margins, greater consumption will result, again ben- 
efiting the farmers. 

This matter of making prices on farm products is 
the most important problem before the people of the 
world. It directly affects half the population of our 
country (about forty million people) and many 
other millions in Europe and other countries. As 
the United States is the great surplus producing 
country, it can make prices on food products for the 
world. It has done it in the past, and has set the 
price too low. The result has been, our farmers are 
the poorest paid of all laborers in this country, and 
the European farmers are paupers. Through the 
Third Power operating through the American So- 
ciety of Equity prices can be set on an equitable 
basis, the American farmer will rise to an equality 
with the best business men of the nation, his profes- 
sion will be above any other, and the European farm- 
ers will rise proportionally. 

This is the time for action, not for longer submis- 
sion. Unless the farmers accept this opportunity I 
believe the opportunity will pass and a land trust 
be formed which will forever make it impossible for 
the rank and file of American farmers to own and 
keep a portion of God's green earth, but they will 
be ground down to serfdom indeed. 



CHAPTER VIII 

MARCH OF EQUITY 

Face about and turn to freedom, 

Shout our blessing o'er the land ! 
Lift our flag of Equity, 

Show the emblem's triumph band ! 
Convert foes or turn them under, 

Here is Equity for all ; 
Let the light of this transcription 

Conquer prices to our call ! 

Free our farmers, free our farmers, 

From the harmers of their price ; 
We are striving, merchants thriving — 

Now we want our proper slice ! 
We will make it, we will break it, 

With a wise man as our guide ; 
Star is over Power the rover, 

Now we'll conquer ev'ry side ! 

— Pearl U dill a Davis. 



Perhaps it has not been made sufficiently clear that 
organization is necessary to accomplish the results 
desired. It has been shown that the farmers ought 
to organize, and that organization is the law of the 
industrial and commercial world, and that in other 
businesses organization has been found to be neces- 
sary. Further it has been argued that farming is a 
business quite as truly as manufacturing, and that 

7i 



72 THE THIRD POWER 

the same laws govern both. It has been insisted, too, 
that unorganized power has little chance in the world 
at the present time, and that unity of action is neces- 
sary to make power felt. Yet some may ask whether 
it may not be possible, admitting that organization 
is desirable, for the farmers to better their condi- 
tion, in the ways indicated, by their own individual 
efforts. This, at least, raises the question as to the 
scope of organization, for few will maintain that 
anything could be done without some combination. 
How extensive should it be? If you will stop to 
think about the matter you will see that if the farm- 
ers of one county, or even of one state or section 
should agree to market only at a fair price they not 
only would fail to accomplish much, but they would 
put themselves in great peril. What would it profit 
the Indiana farmers to adopt this course while the 
farmers of other states were rushing their crops to 
market to be sold at whatever price was offered? 
Suppose there were two stores in your county 
town, and that the proprietor of one of them should 
make up his mind that the price of dry goods was 
too low, and that he would not sell to any one except 
at an advance of fifty per cent., and suppose that the 
proprietor of the other store should keep on selling 
at the old price. Obviously the latter man would 
get all the trade, and the former would have to meet 
his price or go out of business. If the anthracite 
coal men were in a combination, would it be possible 
for any one of them to raise the price of coal as long 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 73 

as one kept on selling steadily at the old price? 
Clearly not. The lowest price asked for a commod- 
ity must be the prevailing price, for the reason that 
the buyers will pay no higher price than the lowest 
at which goods can be secured. 

It is precisely so with the farmers. Recently the 
announcement was made that the farmers of Indiana 
seemed to be holding on to their wheat, and the 
question was asked whether attempts to organize 
them under the banner of "dollar wheat" were meet- 
ing with success. One of the millers said : 

"It is a simple proposition which Indiana farmers 
will face if they withhold their wheat from the mar- 
ket. Other producers will supply the urgent demand 
and the holders will be glad to get what they can for 
their wheat after the others have sold out. The 
question resolves itself into the old one of supply 
and demand." 

The supply and demand question has already been 
discussed, but on the main point the miller is right. 

A combination of Indiana farmers can not fight 
against freely sold wheat in other sections of the 
country. Another miller said that he had no doubt 
that there was a combined effort on the part of Indi- 
ana farmers to withhold their wheat, but he said, 
and truly, "Indiana farmers can not control the mar- 
ket here as long as we can buy elsewhere at the same 
price." But suppose they could not buy elsewhere? 



74 THE THIRD POWER 

And this was the condition they met, but they did 
not want to admit it : Farmers were holding to a 
great extent in all the states, yet without sufficient 
organization and cooperative ability to force the 
price to the dollar mark quickly. The millers, how- 
ever, would not admit it, and the statements made 
were calculated to stampede the farmers and cause 
them to market more freely. This occurred in Au- 
gust, 1903, and the farmers did produce a condition 
that fully justified dollar wheat by withholding sup- 
plies and decreasing the visible to the lowest point 
in many years. The speculators, however, were de- 
termined to hold the price down and defeat the farm- 
ers. Every bear argument that could be found, real 
or imaginary, was brought to bear. Another reason 
why prices were so strenuously held down was the 
fact that the 1903 wheat crop was sold out by the 
speculators around sixty-five cents a bushel in the 
spring when prospects were so flattering and a nine- 
hundred-million-bushel crop was predicted; also 
millers contracted flour that would keep their mills 
grinding for months. It was to the interest of these 
speculators and millers to keep the price down as low 
as possible until they could fill their contracts. The 
obvious conclusion, therefore, is that the combina- 
tion, to be effective, must include a large number of 
farmers. The temporary surplus of any crop must 
be controlled; that is, a surplus must not appear at 
any time. I estimate that one million farmers will 
be sufficient. This is only a comparatively small 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 75 

portion of them, but this number cooperating 
through one central head can, I believe, fully con- 
trol the surplus of any crop this country produces, 
and fix the price equitably for all farmers in this 
country, and on staples like wheat, corn, oats, cotton, 
and meat, set "the price for the world. 

The Grange and Alliance had millions of mem- 
bers ; therefore, if farmers organized before, they can 
again, if there is a good reason for it. The reason is 
more urgent now than ever before, also, the plan is 
so much more practical and the objects so much 
better, that I contend if the farmers will organize 
once more, they will realize such great benefit that 
they will never disorganize. And it is such an or- 
ganization as this that it is proposed to form. Also, 
we expect, after the million members are secured 
for the American Society of Equity, other millions 
will come, until its growth will be stopped because 
there is no more material to grow upon. 

The farmers' organization must be strong enough 
and general enough to regulate the marketing. The 
question is not one of holding products, but pf sell- 
ing them. The proposition is that they shall be held 
only for the purpose of securing a fair price. In a 
word, the farmers must make a seeking market, in- 
stead of dumping their fine, valuable products with- 
out system, like in the case of bankrupt stocks. 

Incidentally, something may be said about the 
ability of the United States to control prices of agri- 
cultural products. It is a fact, that, do the best they 



y6 THE THIRD POWER 

can, the other producing countries of the world of 
bread grains never have enough to supply the de- 
mand. Every year Europe requires about two hun- 
dred millions of bushels of wheat from this country. 
Without this, values in the thickly populated coun- 
tries of Europe would probably rise to fabulous 
prices, and we predict famines would be frequent. 
Claims may be made that production in other coun- 
tries can be greatly increased. In some cases this is 
true, but at the same time population and consump- 
tion will be increasing. Consumption has been in- 
creasing for a few years, faster than production. 
Witness the fact that three years ago this country 
had a visible supply of forty-seven million bushels, 
while at this writing (August, 1903) it is down to 
twelve millions. The same proportions held true 
in foreign countries. This in face of the fact that 
the crop of wheat in 1902 was the largest ever 
grown, and in 1901 was nearly as large. The fig- 
ures clearly prove that consumption has been greater 
than production for the last three years, even when 
production was unprecedentedly large. We can not 
hope to keep up the recent rate of production of 
bread grain except through more intensive farming 
or the opening of new territory. This latter is prob- 
lematic. But suppose the area could be augmented 
by another empire equal in size and productive abil- 
ity to our Mississippi valley. Has not all our central 
west and northwest been put under cultivation with- 
in the memory of present men ? Has not the world 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT yy 

consumed the products ? Are we likely to have such 
an increase in producing area in the next genera- 
tion? I say no. In short, to supply the food for 
future generations, will require intensive farming. 
This means organization, cooperation and better 
prices, so our present farms can be brought up in 
fertility to produce double or triple the present low 
averages. 

To talk of foreign countries exporting wheat or 
other products to this country is absurd, even though 
prices were made higher here. The more likely re- 
sult, in fact the inevitable result, will be for foreign 
farmers to put their price up to meet those of the 
United States. European farmers are more for co- 
operation than are the American farmers, and they 
will be glad to embrace the first opportunity to get 
rid of the competition of this country, in setting 
cheap prices. Besides, it is proposed to organize 
this society in all foreign countries. Thus, we will 
have the Russian Society of Equity, the German 
Society of Equity, etc. Already the movement is 
under way in the surplus producing countries of 
food crops, and great interest is shown in Europe in 
the plan that will enable them to cooperate with the 
American farmers to make equitable prices. 

But suppose it was not possible to retain the for- 
eign markets on wheat — our principal export grain 
— and our farmers were confined to the home market, 
the tariff tax of twenty-five cents a bushel will shut 
out foreign wheat until the home price reaches one 



78 THE THIRD POWER 

dollar and nine cents per bushel, on the basis of 
eighty- four cents, an exportable basis, and this would 
be a big lift. But if farmers will organize and 
get a profitable price for all their crops, I predict one 
of the first results will be decreased production of 
grain crops. With profitable prices assured, farmers 
would not need to put out as large crops as in the 
past. With farming removed from the old system 
when labor was the only factor that earned anything 
and the person who worked the hardest and the 
most hours in the fierce competitive struggle was the 
one who made the most, the tendency will be to not 
work so hard and cut down the acreage. At all 
events a short crop at a profitable price is always 
better than a bumper crop at a losing price. 

This country produces nearly all the corn of the 
world, and is the only one that has the soil and cli- 
mate to grow the crop successfully on a large scale. 
On this crop we can surely dictate to the world. 

There need be no fear about our market. The 
world needs — must have — our surplus and will pay 
a fair price for it when it learns that it can not get 
it at an unfair price, nor will the Argentine or Rus- 
sian exporters be able to beat the American farmers, 
when the farmers in those countries are also organ- 
ized in the Equity society. 

Do you not begin to see how powerful and benefi- 
cent this organization will be ? Already the Chicago 
speculators have been heard crying for wheat. They 
can have all they want, but after the farmers' organ- 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 79 

ization is completed, only at prices made by it. And 
the work has only begun. You are asked simply to 
conduct your business as other business is conducted 
at the present time. It has been said that the twenti- 
eth century farmer is a business man. It is for him to 
show it. The opportunity will be offered to him. 
A definite aim — dollar wheat and fair prices for all 
other crops — will be placed before him. We are to 
see whether he, like other business men, is able to 
get what he goes after. To say that he can not do 
this is to impeach his intelligence. Other men have 
no difficulty in seeing what is for their own good, 
nor will the farmer have. If others can organize, 
he can organize — and he can be true to his organiza- 
tion, especially when he would injure himself by be- 
ing false to it. There will, of course, be predictions 
of failure, as there have been already, but they will 
come from the enemies of the farmer — from those 
who flatter him by telling him that he is a business 
man and yet want him to act as though he were a 
child or a fool. But such criticisms are the surest in- 
dications of success. If the movement were hopeless 
or weak there would be no objections to it. The fact 
that there are objections to it on the part of those 
interested in defeating it, proves that it is practical 
and powerful. The people at large, who love fair 
play, will support the movement when they fully 
understand it. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE FARMERS' FUTURE RHYME 

The dawn of light is breaking 

To quiet farmers' fears; 
The sons of toil are awaking 

To enjoy peaceful, happy years. 

Then all that want protection, 
Here is the way, you plainly see : 

Don't continue competition, 
But join the A. S. of E. 

— W. R. Freeman, Woodville, Mich. 

Undoubtedly one great and probably unsur- 
mountable, obstacle that has hitherto stood in the 
way of any effective and lasting organization of 
farmers by any of the plans tried, has been the isola- 
tion of the agricultural class. When towns were 
few and widely scattered, means of communication 
meager, and when the nearest neighbor was dozens, 
or even scores, of miles away and without any 
means in the organization for frequent communica- 
tion, the farmer could, in the nature of things, know 
little of what was going on in the world, could have 
few or no relations with other farmers. Lacking 
knowledge of the lives of others, he lacked sympathy. 
There was no sense of relationship or inter depend- 

80 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 81 

ence. Men in the same county were farther apart 
then than are men now in widely severed states. 
Now, organization implies some closeness of touch. 
Men must know something of one another; care 
something for one another; have common interests 
and also a realization of the fact that their interests 
are the same. 

A few illustrations will serve. Capital can com- 
bine easily because capital moves freely from one 
point to another. It can be, and is, handled in large 
masses. A dollar in Indiana is as close of kin to a 
dollar in New York as is the nearest neighbor of the 
New York dollar. Laboring men even yet find it 
difficult to migrate from one section to another, but 
capital flows freely to the place where there is the 
greatest demand for it. Distance is no barrier — the 
ocean is no barrier. A man may live in Kansas and 
have his capital working for him in the Philippines 
or in Wall Street. The natural tendency of capital is 
toward combination. And it knows nothing of iso- 
lation. Turning to labor we find that labor combi- 
nations are easily effected because laboring men live 
in cities, and close together. Thousands of them 
work in the same factory or on the same railroad. 
They meet constantly and talk over things affecting 
their condition. It is natural and easy for them to 
cooperate; indeed, they can hardly help doing so. 
Each man feels — and he would feel it whether there 
were an organization or not — that he is the member 
of a vast body, and he gets the daily encouragement 



82 THE THIRD POWER 

of touching elbows constantly with his fellow-sol- 
diers. Thus there is this sense of unity independent 
of the organization itself. He knows that others 
are interested in him as he is in others. Combina- 
tion and concert of action could not but come. And 
it was easy because the laboring men were close to- 
gether. 

It has been different on the farm. The farmer, 
to be sure, knew that there were millions of others 
engaged in the same occupation as his, but he never 
saw them, knew nothing about them, and he could 
hardly help feeling that he w r as a lone skirmisher, not 
certain whether he would be supported by the main 
body or not. He worked for himself as others did 
for themselves, and, as a consequence, each was sub- 
jected to the severest competition from the others. 
Community of interest was not thought of. Com- 
bination seemed unnatural, and so, impossible. The 
conditions implied division and separation. Isola- 
tion was the bar to organization. But now all this 
is changed, and henceforth the tendency will be 
strong in the direction of combination. The rural 
delivery, the telephone, the interurban trolley, good 
roads, the wider diffusion of books and papers, the 
growth of cities and towns throughout the rural re- 
gion, have all served, and will increasingly serve, 
to bring the farmers closer together. The farmer 
can get to town every day now, whereas twenty-five 
years ago he could not, or did not, do so once a week 
or once a month. He meets his neighbors in socie- 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 83 

ties and institutes, where they discuss subjects of 
interest to all. He, too, feels the touch of the elbow 
on each side of him, and knows that millions of oth- 
ers are fighting the same battle that he has to fight, 
and that they can fight it best by combining forces. 
Rural America is to-day one vast neighborhood with 
interests in common from ocean to ocean, and the 
American Society of Equity is specially constructed 
to promote good fellowship and cooperative indus- 
trial development. 

So we hear from all sides talk of organization. 
This means that organization is felt to be both a ne- 
cessity and a possibility. When men — at least when 
Americans — are brought together the first thing 
they think of is organization. No people that ever 
lived had such a capacity as the Americans have 
for concerted action. In the present case, men have 
not proposed to organize the farmers simply because 
they thought it would be well to do so, but because 
they saw that conditions invited organization. This 
is the way in which great and successful movements 
always come. Prophets and seers may dream of 
wonderful things, but if they are in advance of their 
time, they try to accomplish them and fail, or, de- 
spairing of success, they attempt nothing. The cen- 
turies roll by, and at last, in the fulness of time, the 
man and the hour coincide and then the world takes 
a tremendous step in advance. Only the. other day 
a man wrote a book on submarine navigation. He 
showed that inventors had been busy with the prob- 



84 THE THIRD POWER 

lem for centuries, and that one boat had been built 
three hundred years ago, which actually did travel 
a short distance under water under propulsion of 
oars. But the writer said that this inventor could 
do little simply because he had outstripped the pos- 
sibilities of the science of his day. Steam naviga- 
tion was then two hundred years in the future. 
Even thirty years ago submarine boats were looked 
on as impracticable — Jules Verne writing fancifully 
of a trip under the sea as he did of a journey to the 
moon or the center of the earth. Now the problem 
is solved, not because the men of our day first 
thought of solving it, but because science had ad- 
vanced sufficiently to enable them to solve it — had 
given them the materials to work with. ■ Much the 
same thing is true of aerial navigation. It is so of 
reform movements. Even the Christian religion 
could not have spread so rapidly had it not been that 
the world was prepared for it. The Romans had 
built the roads over which missionaries traveled, 
had welded mankind together, had established peace, 
law and order throughout the civilized world, and 
created a system of government that was marvelous 
for its efficiency. 

The moral is plain. Every influence that can be 
named is operating to bind the farmers together. 
Railroads, the telegraph, the wonderful extension of 
the telephone service, the rural mail service, the trol- 
ley roads, the growth of towns in proximity to the 
farm, the spread of education, the development of 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 85 

the scientific side of farming, the multiplication of 
agricultural schools and farm journals, the work of 
the agricultural department of the government, the 
settling up of the country, and, above all, the right 
plan has been devised. And these will combine to 
knit the farmers closely together, to destroy the 
old isolation, and to make the farmers themselves 
see that organization is as natural and easy in their 
case as in the case of the city laborers, manufactur- 
ers and others. And now, with every condition fa- 
voring, the American Society of Equity has arrived. 
Those who have dreamed of an organization of the 
farmers may now see their dream realized. The new 
society is not an artificial thing imposed on a civi- 
lization not ready for it. On the contrary, it is the 
outgrowth of the very same influences which have 
wrought such marvelous changes in the condition of 
the farmer. As the close association which the 
working men have with one another inevitably sug- 
gested organization, so organization will be sug- 
gested to the farmer by the closer associations that 
now exist between him and his fellow farmers. Iso- 
lation will yield, as it has done already to some ex- 
tent, more and more to combination, and the farm- 
ers, united and acting together for the good of each 
and all, will no longer be conquered in detail by 
other classes. Instead of ignorantly and uncon- 
sciously carrying on a guerrilla warfare against one 
another, they will henceforth cooperate loyally and 



86 THE THIRD POWER 

effectively for the improvement of the agricultural 
situation. 

Who dare predict that farmers can not and will 
not stand by each other in a great national body for 
business benefits ? He might as well attempt to deny 
that millions of farmers have not been loyal to the 
great political parties. Republican and Democratic, 
these many years. If the farmers will rally to the 
support of their party in politics as often as called 
upon will they not be faithful to themselves in a 
business body? The farmers united in the great 
American Society of Equity will each find a brother 
at his elbow on the right and on the left who is 
wearing the badge, "For Profitable Prices/' They 
all have common interests. When they are called 
upon by headquarters to express themselves on any 
matter it will appeal to them even more than politics. 
The appeal will not be ambiguous. What they will 
be asked to do will be for their benefit. Their self- 
interests will be appealed to and why should they do 
otherwise than cast their vote in favor of their own 
interests? If the farmers are told to ask a fair price 
for cotton, wool, wheat, corn, oats, potatoes, eggs, 
milk, butter, tobacco, vegetables, fruit, hogs, cattle, 
etc., and each farmer knows that the word goes out 
to the millions of other farmers all over the broad 
land, do you suppose they would do the contrary 
thing? Or if we will admit that all will not obey, — 
some because they can not stop marketing, — there 
will still be enough in this great body to control the 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 87 

marketing and make the price. All that will be nec- 
essary is to stop marketing, wherever the buyers will 
not pay your price. In other words, to supply the 
goods as the markets need them, and not dump them 
in uncertain quantities at uncertain times. The sys- 
tem of marketing the bulk of a crop soon after it is 
produced results in creating a large visible supply, 
which is used as a club ever after to beat down prices 
for the balance of the year. Speculators understand 
this to perfection. The clubs of "visible supply" and 
"daily receipts" are the bears' leading arguments. 
The farmers can prevent a large visible supply by 
keeping the produce back on the farm and let it come 
forward gradually during twelve months. And if 
they will sell only when they get the agreed price the 
buyers will look out for the daily receipts. When 
considering this matter of prices and marketing, 
farmers should always keep in mind this fact : That 
the world will consume as much of your products 
at a fair, profitable price as at an unprofitable price. 



CHAPTER X 

The dawn of light is breaking, 

The darkness disappears, 
The sons of toil are waking 

To drive away their fears. 
Let all be up and working 

With all their might and main, 
To make our union lasting 

And all the youths to train. 

The work is now before us, 

Let's up and at it strong. 
Let not a member falter 

To push the work along. 
Let every one unite 

With shoulder to the wheel, 
And carry the heavy load aright 

That all may happy feel. 

When to our homes we do return, 

Our hearts are light and free 
To know we have our honors earned 

And made our brothers see. 
Come brothers, sisters, all, 

United now we stand. 
Come heed our leaders' call 

And make a firm, strong band. 

Something has been said of the influence of agri- 
cultural schools and papers, which is undoubtedly 
good as far as it goes. But it does not go far 

88 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 89 

enough, and there is need here for reform. The 
whole purpose of those who teach agriculture as a 
science is, of course, to develop the scientific side of 
the business, and to teach the farmers how to make 
their land as productive as possible. This is well, 
but it must be remembered that what the farmer 
wants to produce is not crops, but money — or crops 
as a means of getting money. His aim is, or should 
be, to make his farm productive, but productive of 
money. To this end he should practise the econo- 
mies that other business men practise, making ex- 
tensive use of machinery, keeping his soil in good 
condition, studying the question of crops and their 
rotation, observing the markets; in short, trying to 
raise as big crops as possible are commendable, but, 
after all these are done, there is something more 
important. It is the profitable market. It is one 
that, in justice to the farmer, ought not to be over- 
looked by any of the teachers, speakers or experi- 
menters. 

The only people who profit more from a large 
crop than a small one are the consumers, railroad 
men, middlemen, and the speculators. The railroads 
charge as much for hauling a cheap bushel as a dear 
one, and the more bushels there are the better it is 
for them. The same way with the speculator and 
middleman. Cheap and abundant wheat is quite as 
profitable for speculative purposes as dear and scarce 
wheat. The farmer's prosperity, on the other hand, 
depends on both the price and the quantity. As the 



90 THE THIRD POWER 

freight is the same on the cheap as on the dear 
bushel, it is evident that a larger proportion of the 
price goes to the railroad in the former than in the 
latter case, to the reduction of the farmer's profit. 
So the question is much more complex than it seems 
to be on its face. 

Suppose by the application of improved methods 
the average of wheat per acre could be raised from 
twelve to thirty bushels, and this is exactly what a 
professor of the Indiana Agricultural Experiment 
Station said the farmers could and should do, by 
coming to them and learning how. This on the same 
acreage as now would mean a yield of more than 
2,000,000,000 bushels instead of 700,000,000. Un- 
der present conditions the effect on price would be 
most depressing. No one can say how far the price 
would fall, but it is certain that the farmer would 
get less profit for the large crop than he now gets, 
even at the present moderate price, for the smaller 
one. While it is not possible to increase any of our 
crops so enormously as in this illustration, it will 
serve to show the folly of the farmers' institutions, 
teaching how to raise large crops without the ability 
to put profitable prices on them. Better devote their 
efforts to teaching them how to raise less ; as under 
present systems, if each farm would raise uniformly 
less, so as to always make a hungry market, our 
farmers would revel in prosperity. Better yet would 
be to join in the educational work and teach them 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 91 

how to get a good price for a large crop as well as 
for a small one. 

The farmer is more interested in the question of 
price now than in quantity of crop. However, with 
the ability to fix profitable prices on the farm, and 
prevent a surplus from appearing on the market at 
any one time, it will be practically impossible to 
raise a surplus of any of our crops for many years. 
As we have shown, profitable prices will curtail pro- 
duction at first, rather than stimulate it, while pop- 
ulation and consumption will go on increasing. 
Those who advise the farmer to raise larger crops 
and to make his land more fruitful, without the 
ability to fix prices, are, therefore, unsafe advisers, 
and unconsciously have been playing into the hands 
of the transportation companies, middlemen, and 
speculators. 

By all means the farmer should adopt scientific, 
up-to-date methods, but he should apply them to the 
marketing of his crops, as well as to the raising of 
them. Scientific business as well as scientific agri- 
culture is needed. The crop in which the farmer is 
most interested is the crop of money. It is for that 
that he works. He does not want to raise crops 
simply for the sake of raising them. He raises 
them to sell. The money that he gets for them is 
his living. The bigger the crop the better, of course, 
provided the price be right. But, and here is the 
point, the bigger the crop, the greater is the neces- 
sity that the farmer should control the sale of it, 



92 THE THIRD POWER 

Under the present free competitive system, a big 
crop may be, and frequently is, anything but a bless- 
ing to the man that grows it. When the crop is 
small it, in a measure, takes care of itself, even as 
things are to-day. It is when his fields are most 
fruitful and the conditions most favorable that the 
farmer is likely to find himself swamped by the very 
plenteousness of his yield. I have made the asser- 
tion that the short crops of 1901 were responsible 
directly and indirectly in bringing more prosperity 
to the farmers than any other crop they ever raised. 
Really they, the farmers, get their blessings in dis- 
guise. 

Thus it appears that the very instruction that is 
being given at our agricultural schools, experiment 
stations, farmers' institutes and by farm papers 
makes further instruction necessary. When you 
teach a man how to grow the largest possible crop 
on a given acreage, and press on him the necessity 
of doing so, you put yourself under obligation to 
show him how he may best deal with the products 
which he has raised in such abundance. Without 
this latter instruction the former may be worse than 
useless — nay, may be positively harmful. This is a 
subject to which our schools and papers ought to 
give their attention. Certainly the farmers should 
think about it very seriously. When you increase 
largely the output, you, of necessity — other condi- 
tions remaining the same — depress the price, unless 
you can control the marketing. A community or 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 93 

country will, however, consume as much at a fair 
price as at a low price. A fair price appears to add 
dignity to a commodity, and make it more desired. 
Besides, if we can keep the farmers prosperous by 
giving them good prices, we can keep the world pros- 
perous, thus stimulating consumption. 

The present average yield of wheat is in the 
neighborhood of thirteen bushels an acre, and at that 
average the country can produce about 650,000,000 
bushels. That is enough at the present time to sup- 
ply the needs of our own people, and to furnish a 
quantity for export. Whether it would pay the 
farmer to raise more under the old conditions, de- 
pends entirely on the price he could get for it. A 
short crop at a high price might bring him more 
money than a large crop at low prices. This condi- 
tion has frequently prevailed. In fact it is the rule 
that the smallest crops sell for more money than the 
largest ones. 

So the question is whether the price of the large 
crop, though lower than that received for the small 
crop, is still high enough to enable the farmer to 
make at least as much money net on his investment. 
If it is not, he loses. This question of the ratio be- 
tween quantity and price is of vital importance, and 
the ratio is one that is easily disturbed and thrown 
out of joint. He would be a bold man who, under- 
standing the matter, tells the farmer that he ought 
to raise more than he is now raising, and the farmer 
who will listen to such teaching without a protest 



94 THE THIRD POWER 

does not deserve a better fate than has been his por- 
tion in the past. Yet the whole object of so-called 
scientific instruction in farming is to induce the 
farmer to do just that thing. 

But the farmer will not forget the question of 
price. The American Society of Equity is not going 
to let him forget it. This is the first and great ob- 
ject of the society. It is the stepping-stone to the 
accomplishment of the Third Power. The society 
is willing to cooperate with the schools by show- 
ing the farmer how to market and by helping him 
to market profitably the larger crops which he is be- 
ing taught to raise. The two things — up-to-date 
farming and up-to-date business — must go together. 
No sane manufacturer makes more goods than he 
thinks he can sell profitably, or increases his facili- 
ties beyond what he believes to be the power of his 
customers or possible customers to consume. He 
does not put in new and elaborate machinery sim- 
ply that he may increase his output — whether he does 
that depends on the condition of the market, and his 
ability to control prices — but that he may produce 
more cheaply and thus, if need be, to sell more 
cheaply, yet make more money. It should be so 
with the farmer. He must never forget the ques- 
tion of price, and must ever remember that the 
product which he is after is not corn or wheat or 
cotton, or pork or beef, but gold. He who gets the 
most gold out of his grounds is the most successful, 
up-to-date and scientific farmer. 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 95 

Good prices for farm products means increased 
prosperity, and increased prosperity means greater 
consumption. The element of waste alone of food 
and clothing when people are prosperous is a great 
item, and will have an important bearing on the 
farmers' markets and prices. 



CHAPTER XI 

All hail the cause of Equity ! 

Let all the nation ring 
With glad huzzas from wakened hearts, 

That blithesome tribute bring. 
In honor of the dawn of truth, 

Of justice, fair and right; 
For farmers who so patiently 

Have waited for the light. 

That light is swiftly coming now; 

It spreads along the way, 
And brightens all the world about 

With its hope-giving ray. 
Soon, soon the day of right shall glow, 

In splendor through the land, 
When every farmer lad shall march 

In Equity's fair band. 

Such are some of the needs of the farmer. It has 
been shown that they can be satisfied only through 
organization, and it must now be inquired whether 
the American Society of Equity is the sort of an or- 
ganization that the situation demands. A consider- 
ation of the subjects that it proposes to accomplish 
will at least prove that its founder intends it to do 
the work which it has been said must be done, if the 
farmer is to wield the power that he should wield. 
The objects that it aims at are precisely the ones 

9 6 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 97 

that have already been put before the reader. The 
very first thing proposed is, that the farmer should 
"obtain profitable prices for all farm products, in- 
cluding grain, fruit, vegetables, stock, cotton, and 
their equivalents." It has been shown that the farm- 
ers oftentimes do not obtain fair prices for these 
products, and that such prices can not be obtained 
without organization among the farmers. This is the 
theory on which the American Society of Equity is 
based. That organization can do this it has been the 
purpose of this argument to demonstrate. That the 
American Society of Equity can do it follows neces- 
sarily, if the argument already made is sound, for it 
is based on principles that have been set forth in the 
preceding pages. 

But there are certain details connected with this 
question of price that need further exposition. In 
order to get a fair price it has to be proved that the 
farmers are under no necessity of selling their crops 
at irregular intervals and in uncertain quantities, and 
this involves two questions : First : Can the farmers 
hold them ? and second : Have they the facilities for 
holding them? It is insisted that few farmers are 
driven to the necessity of selling their crops to the 
first purchaser that offers, for the farmers are even 
now the most completely self-supporting class in the 
country. Many of them have been asked, "Why do 
you sell your crops now?" and the answer almost 
invariably is, "I have found from experience that the 
price is about as high now as it will be at any time, 
7 



98 THE THIRD POWER 

so I let it go." That is, they do not sell because they 
have to, but because they are disgusted with former 
attempts to hold and the results. They exercise a 
free choice, and they choose to sell because they think 
they can make as much money by selling as by hold- 
ing. Undoubtedly this is the true reason in the ma- 
jority of cases for their haste to get rid of their crops. 
The farmers think that the price, though not good, 
is as good as they can hope to get, and they fear that 
they may get caught in a decline. So they let go 
and then complain that farming does not pay. But 
do you stop to consider that somebody holds these 
crops — your wheat, oats, corn, potatoes, poultry, but- 
ter, eggs, fruit, tobacco, cotton, meat, etc. The 
world don't consume them — gulp them down — as 
soon as you let go of them. They go into elevators, 
cold storage houses, packing houses, etc. There 
they are held by comparatively few individuals until 
the hungry consumer wants them, when they come 
forth with profits added. The present system of 
marketing by farmers is similar to that of throwing 
bankrupt stocks on the market. And the farmers 
adhere to it, not because they like it, but because they 
have no better way. The purpose of the American 
Society of Equity is to point to and provide a better 
way. And as the farmers are free agents, they can 
tread that way if they choose to do so. 

The other question is as to the ability of the farm- 
ers to hold their crops. This, too, is answered by 
the American Society of Equity. For another of its 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 99 

objects is "to secure equitable rates of transportation, 
and to provide for storage in warehouses." There 
has always been more or less strife between the farm- 
ers and the railroads and the elevator interests, and 
in that strife the farmers usually lose. Of late co- 
operative societies have been formed in the western 
and northwestern states, the object of which is to 
enable the farmers to store and ship their own grain. 
As a rule they have been successful and profitable. 
These associations can easily affiliate with the Amer- 
ican Society of Equity, and with the ability to control 
prices, as well as to save the grain trusts' profit and 
get equitable rates of transportation, they will be in 
a very enviable position. Without the ability to make 
equitable — profitable — prices, they will still be at the 
mercy of the trusts, speculators and gamblers. And 
without the power to hold the grain, prices can not 
be fixed. Thus the two things must go together. I 
claim the best place to hold grain is on the farm in a 
good safe, vermin-proof granary. The farmer then 
has no elevator charges to pay, which in public ele- 
vators is about one cent a month and eight cents a 
year. This is a heavy tax, and is about sufficient to 
build an elevator, if used to its capacity, in a year. 
The next best way is to have a community elevator. 
Several local unions of the A. S. of E. will join to- 
gether and erect it. And beyond this it is the design 
of the society to have large elevators in the leading 
market cities, under the management of the National 
Union, .\\ T here grain will be stored for members at 

L. ! w. 



ioo THE THIRD POWER 

lowest rates. Cold storage houses will serve a simi- 
lar purpose and on the same system for perishable 
products. Individual members can store their fruit, 
poultry, or dairy products, meat, etc., in the local 
union line of storage houses, or consignments from 
local union or large individual producers will be 
received in the National Union storage houses. In 
this way the produce can be taken care of, the market 
supplied regularly with what it needs, and uniform- 
ity of prices maintained throughout summer and 
winter. The producers will be benefited by higher 
prices and the consumers benefited by lower prices, 
because the mountains of greedy profits that are now 
added by unfair middlemen and food trusts will be 
cut out. 

But you may ask, How are the poor farmers to 
hold their crops ? 

In the first place, it will not be necessary to hold 
all crops at any time, and those who do hold will 
make a better price for those who can not hold. 
Also our farms and farmers need the "rest cure/' 
and will not work so hard with profitable prices in 
sight, thus reducing the crops. 

Second, with the farmers organized and fixing a 
minimum (lowest) price dealers will see that they 
can not buy any cheaper, and there is a possibility 
that prices will be higher. Therefore, they will all 
want to buy all they can at the low price, and will 
put all their capital in the commodity as soon as the 
poor producers must sell. I predict that the market 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 101 

would take more when this system is in force than 
will be offered. 

Third, the society provides for those farmers who 
will hold their grain and other produce a rising mar- 
ket each month. This may be one- fourth or one-half, 
or one cent per bushel or hundredweight, depending 
on the commodity, kind of crop and the market. The 
advance will be sufficient to offset shrinkage, interest, 
etc. If there is a tendency to market too freely this 
monthly advance can be increased to make it profita- 
ble to hold. It is reasonable to believe that farmers 
will hold on to their crops if there is a certainty of 
making money by doing it. This monthly advance 
should be adjusted to a nicety, so it will not allow 
loss nor make a profit, but the inducement will be to 
maintain prices, which will result when twelve 
months' requirements are filled, by marketing one- 
twelfth of the annual crop each month. 

Fourth, grain in a granary or elevator, produce in 
a storage house or property anywhere in evidence, 
establishes credit. If cash is wanted for pressing 
needs it can easily be raised on warehouse receipts, 
or on personal notes, at any financial institution. 

Let me say right here that the American Society 
of Equity does not propose to loan money to its 
members unless it engages in the banking business 
later. Also we want to effectually explode the theory 
of maintaining profitable prices for farm products 
by the use of money. No individual, society, corpo- 
ration, nor Russian government, nor United States 



102 THE THIRD POWER 

government can make and maintain profitable prices 
for farm products by the use of money, even though 
they had the treasure of these great nations to fall 
back upon. It would be possible to keep prices up 
for a while by the use of money, but remember, when 
a price is paid for a commodity that you can not con- 
sume yourself, you must find another party who will 
take it off of your hands at a higher price, and here is 
where the trouble comes. If the farmers' society 
would supply the money to take their crops at profit- 
able prices it would be a great thing for the members 
as long as it lasted. They — the members — would 
not need to concern themselves about anything but 
to go back to the farm and raise as large crops as 
possible and turn them into their society, which must 
not only pay them a profitable price but find some 
other person to take them at a higher price. This is 
a sure way to run up an unwieldy surplus. The only 
way to handle this problem is to make each individ- 
ual producer responsible for production and markets. 
If he produces too much he must take a lower price 
or hold it over to a season of less production on his 
own account. In this way he pays the penalty for 
his indiscretion. Also, if farmers will not sell at the 
equitable minimum price and foolishly hold out for 
a higher price, prevent the crops from going into 
consumption and run up a large surplus, the board of 
directors must declare a lower price, and thus they 
will suffer again for their stubbornness. The Amer- 
ican Society of Equity does not stand for high 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 103 

prices, but for equitable prices, believing that as 
large consumption will result at a profitable price to 
the producer as at an unprofitable price. It will as 
strenuously oppose holding for unfairly high prices 
as it opposes selling for unprofitably low prices. 

How will the society secure money to build ware- 
houses, etc. ? 

Farmers can do anything they want to do, or what 
they in equity should do, if they will organize and co- 
operate to put profitable prices on their products. 
Suppose they would want to build or buy elevators, 
cold storage houses, stock yards, telegraph systems, 
railroads, ship lines, make good county roads, etc., 
they could do all these things and not issue a bond, 
mortgage a property nor pay a cent out of their own 
pocket. 

Suppose they would add a little extra to each prin- 
cipal crop they raise and cut it out of the middle- 
men's and trusts' profits. We have an illustration 
like the following : 

Barley 119,000,000 bu. at 10c per bu. $11,000,000 

Buckwheat 10,000,000 " 

Corn 2.666,000,000 " 

Oats 943,000,000 " 

Rye 25,000,000 " 

Wheat 658,000,000 " 

Potatoes 273,000,000 " 

Flaxseed 19,000,000 " 

Apples 175,000,000 " 

Hay 84,000.000 tons 

Cotton 4,717,000,000 lbs. 

Tobacco 868,000,000 " 

Swine 10,500,000,000 " 

Eggs 1,293,000,000 doz. 

Dairy products 281,600,000 dollars at 10 per 

cent, increase. 28,160,000 



ioc 1,000,000 

ioc " " 266,600,000 

ioc " " 94,300,000 

ioc " " 2,500,000 

ioc " " 65,800,000 

ioc " " 27,300,000 

ioc " " 1,900,000 

ioc " " 17,500,000 

$2.00 " ton 168,000,000 

2c "lb. 94,340,000 

5c " " 43,400,000 

2c " " 210,000,000 

5c " doz. 54.65o,ooo 



Total $1,086,450,000 

This, as you will allow, does not near cover all 



104 THE THIRD POWER 

the sources of income to the farm, and a like appre- 
ciation of value in other products would add ad- 
ditional millions to the total. Suppose this amount 
was to be expended for a few years, the farmer could 
own all the facilities for reporting their crops and 
markets, holding for advantageous prices and trans- 
porting them to markets. 

Another way : 

If it was not desired to raise money by an assess- 
ment on the crops, each member, when he is getting 
benefits such as this society will give, will willingly 
pay a few dollars a year to provide facilities for 
handling his business. With a membership of five 
million, an assessment of $10 each will raise a fund 
of fifty million dollars. If this amount is expended 
each year for five or ten years all the really necessary 
facilities will be provided. It is not, however, pro- 
posed to decide on the way to do these things now. 
But rather to organize and put the farmers in con- 
dition to do whatever they want to do when the time 
comes. Thus with no compulsion to sell, with facili- 
ties to store, with power to make prices, the farmers 
will be what they ought to be and now are in theory 
— independent. 

But it is proposed to use this power fairly and 
honorably. It is not proposed to favor a high price, 
but simply a profitable price. And every one is en- 
titled to a profitable price if he can get it. The ques- 
tion is how to get it. By the plan of the A. S. of E. 
no hardship will be imposed on any one, and the con- 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 105 

sumers of farm products have nothing to fear. In- 
deed, it has already been shown that the whole coun- 
try is interested in having the farmer get profitable 
prices. There need be no conflict of interest here. 

What difference would it make to the consumer 
whether the price of wheat is eighty cents or a dollar 
a bushel? The average consumption of wheat is 
about five bushels per capita, or twenty cents increase 
per bushel is one dollar increase a year. This will be 
eight and one-third cents a month, or less than one- 
third cent a day. For a family of four persons a 
little more than one cent a day. The question is, 
however, whether bread would be dearer. I think 
present bakers' bread prices were made when wheat 
was higher, and they have not been put down. Also 
it is proposed to reduce the price of so many com- 
modities when this society is in operation — notably 
meat — that the average will clearly be in favor of the 
consumer. 

But suppose the establishment of the farmers' so- 
ciety and the Third Power would result in a slight 
advance in food. Wages have been increased out of 
all proportion to any advance that can result here. 
Also by giving the farmers a lift now along with the 
general industrial elevation we will be increasing his 
consuming powers for all manufactured goods, and 
for everything he can consume on the farm and in 
his family, thus benefiting the laborers in prospect 
of continued high wages. Also if we put the farmers 
in a position where each of them will keep one or 



106 THE THIRD POWER 

more hired men at union wages, the year around, 
which is what this movement means, we make a mar- 
ket for labor such as was never before dreamed of. 

Is it necessary to illustrate this further ? Is it not 
clear that if marketing was done systematically and 
the existing demand supplied, and no more, that 
prices can be maintained at equitable rates? The 
American Society of Equity, through its board of 
directors, will be the head or clearing house to the 
entire agricultural industry. Through the official 
paper and the press of the country this head will 
speak to every member weekly and give news about 
crops and crop prospects; advice about market and 
marketing. All the millions of farmers will have the 
same advice at the same time about the same things 
from an authentic head quite in contrast with the 
blind guessing as at present. All will thus be pos- 
sessed of the same knowledge, influenced by the same 
motives, and they may act as one man — in short, 
cooperate — for the single purpose of securing the 
equitable minimum price. 

The plan of the American Society of Equity is 
broad enough and comprehensive enough to care 
for every branch of agricultural effort — the grain 
grower, the stock feeder, the dairyman, the poultry 
man, the cotton grower, the tobacco grower, the fruit 
grower, etc. As soon as it is in operation it will ben- 
efit the largest operator, no difference in what line 
nor where situated, and also the owner of a few rods 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 107 

of ground, by securing stability of price, which 
means stability of prosperity. 

The plan is to recommend a minimum price at 
which staple crops shall be sold in leading or base 
markets. For instance, grain prices will be based 
on Chicago, cotton on New York or New Orleans, 
etc. Other markets and the farm prices will then be 
regulated by the base market. The farm price will 
be the base market price less transportation and cost 
of handling. Farmers whose produce does not go 
to the base market can calculate the freight from the 
principal market that receives their crops. This min- 
imum value will be named each year when the crop 
is produced and will be equitable on the basis of pro- 
duction and consumption, lower in years of large 
crops than in years of small crops, but always a price 
that will protect the farmer. If speculators force the 
price over the minimum price the farmers may, of 
course, take it. Farmers will be expected, however, 
to stop marketing when the market will not take 
more at the minimum price. The minimum price 
will be the safety valve which will regulate the sup- 
ply to the demand. 

It must be understood that there has not been a 
genuine surplus of any farm crop produced in many 
years. All have gone into consumption. It is the 
temporary surplus that is responsible for low prices, 
and it is this temporary surplus that the farmers are 
expected to control in the American Society of 
Equity. We see illustrations nearly every day in 



108 THE THIRD POWER 

the market reports, when the visible of any crop in- 
creases considerably from free marketing the price 
goes down. When farmers stop marketing, prices go 
up. This is very clearly shown in the cattle markets. 
We reproduce from the Chicago Live Stock World 
as follows : 

"Country shippers are surely not hurting cattle 
buyers by sending in little runs of cattle on days 
when more could be used at steady prices and piling 
up a glut on one or two days when prices go off 
ten to twenty-five cents and oftentimes worse. 

"Here is the way it looks on paper : 

Monday receipts 36,010, prices 10 @ 15c lower 

Tuesday receipts 7,081, prices steady 

Wednesday receipts.. 25,174, prices steady 

Thursday receipts 11,472, prices 10 @ 15c higher 

Friday receipts 2,990, prices 10 @ 15c higher 

Monday again 36,000, prices 10 @ 15c lower 

"It ought not to be hard to figure out who gets 
the worst of this sort of a distribution of cattle." 

But there are those who think that the farmers are 
getting fair prices now — and of course they do get 
fair prices sometimes. However, let us consider the 
case of wheat as typical. Is $1 too much? For the 
past fourteen years, from 1888 to 1902, the average 
price of wheat in Chicago was j6 2-3 cents. The 
average yield is less than thirteen bushels an acre. 
Taking thirteen bushels as a liberal average, it ap- 
pears that during this time the farmer has realized 
$9.95 off each acre planted in wheat. This is for the 
use of an acre for one year, and must cover the cost 
of labor, of seed, of sowing, of care, of harvesting, 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 109 

of twine, of threshing and of marketing. From this 
must further be deducted interest on investment, loss 
of fertility in the soil, wear and tear of machinery 
and operator's profit. It is such a price as this that 
is responsible for the farm laborer earning only 
twenty-six cents a day and that has put farmers in 
the very lowest class of laborers. Surely even those 
who hold that $1 is too high must admit that 76 2-3 
cents is too low. 

Thus it is that question of price is fundamental. 
We are all interested, not simply in the farmer, but 
in his land — which, in a sense, belongs to all of us. 
Rudyard Kipling, writing of the American, says : 

"An easy unswept hearth he lends 

From Labrador to Guadeloupe; 
Till elbowed out by sloven friends, 

He camps, at sufference, on the stoop." 

It is so. We have been prodigal with our national 
domain, and we have invited people from all over the 
world to come here, take up land, and compete with 
those already in possession. And now we find that 
many of our farms are in an impoverished condition 
from long cropping, and the return from grain and 
other farm products is not sufficient to justify the 
expense of restoring the fertility. Farmers have 
truly sold their birthright for a mess of pottage. 
This is obviously a very serious matter, and it can 
only be dealt with by securing equitable prices for 
all farm products. The farmer should have $1 for 



no THE THIRD POWER 

wheat this year (1903), and a proportionate price 
for all his other products. He can get these prices 
through the American Society of Equity, which is 
the organized Third Power. 



CHAPTER XII 

In council there is wisdom, 

In union there is strength, 
And by cooperation 

We will succeed at length. 
With a bold, united effort 

We are sure to win the day, 
When Equity shall triumph 

And producers will have their way. 

Now this is our condition, 

Though a shameful tale to tell ; 
The speculator prices 

The things we have to sell ; 
And when we want to purchase 

Our purchases come high, 
For the speculator prices 

The things we have to buy. 

Having spoken of the present dependence of the 
farmer on other classes, and having shown the effect 
of low prices on his consuming power, and also on 
his land, it seems necessary, before leaving this ques- 
tion of prices, to say a few words about the earnings 
of the farmer and present additional comparisons. 
There are many who tell him of his happiness, pros- 
perity and independence. While there is no intention 
to make things appear worse than they are it is in- 
tended to put the exact truth before the farmer. The 

in 



ii2 THE THIRD POWER 

census of 1900 shows that, taking all the farmers to- 
gether, the average income per family during the 
census year was only $643, or only a little over $2 
a day, counting 300 working days to the year. The 
average income of the families of other laborers was 
$1,146, or over $4 a day. Two and a third million 
of farmers' families had a yearly income of less than 
$200, while 4,000,000 families had an income of less 
than $400 each. Only one family in eight had an in- 
come of more than $800. If these figures are wrong 
then the census returns are wrong. Remember, they 
represent the average farmer. 

Are farm prices equitable when two-thirds of the 
families on the farm are limited to an income of less 
than $400 a year each? For this they must work 
longer hours at the most exacting and wearisome 
labor, oftentimes under the most disagreeable con- 
ditions, while the laborers in towns and cities, who 
are largely engaged in producing the goods that the 
farmers buy, work short hours, under pleasant con- 
ditions, and receive three times the reward. Brad- 
streets has figured that manufacturers, with an in- 
vestment of ten billion dollars, produce thirteen bil- 
lions of products, while the farmer, with an invest- 
ment of twenty billions, produces only five billions of 
products. In other words, the dollar of the manufac- 
turer returns him $1.30 of products, while the dollar 
of the farmer returns him only 25 cents of products. 
Where is the equity when a dollar invested in one 
form of manufacturing returns five times as much 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 113 

as in another? Is not James J. Hill, the railroad 
magnate, right when he says : "The time has come 
when the United States should take steps to 
strengthen the backbone of the country — the farm- 
ing class," and James Wilson, our secretary of ag- 
riculture, when he says : "We can not do too much 
for our farmers" ? Prices of farm products will 
never be maintained at profitable rates by the gov- 
ernment, nor by buyers, nor by consumers. Un- 
certainty of values of farm products will never be at 
an end until, through national cooperation, farmers 
make their own prices on the farm. 
. When we consider the slight reward that the 
farmer gets for his labor we can understand why ru- 
ral America is to-day largely the reflection of wasted 
efforts and hopes not realized. It should be a para- 
dise of prosperous farms, beautiful homes, and hap- 
py, contented families. An equitable distribution of 
rewards will make it all this. Yet it is said that the 
farmer is responsible for the high prices which have 
recently prevailed. This is but an effort to shoulder 
off on him the burden which rightfully rests on the 
shoulders of the trusts and speculators. An illustra- 
tion will serve to prove this. A bushel of wheat, for 
which the farmer may receive 72 cents in the Indian- 
apolis market, will make forty pounds of flour, six- 
teen pounds of bran and four pounds of waste. The 
consumer pays 3 cents a pound for the flour, or 
$1.20, and the farmer buys the bran back at $22 a 
ton, or 19 cents. Here is a total of $1.39 produced 
8 



ii4 THE THIRD POWER 

from an original value of 72 cents. It is thus seen 
that the farmer's wheat has doubled in price by the 
time it reaches the consumer. By the route of the 
bakery 50 to 100 per cent, more will be added. It is 
the same way with the farmer's meat, butter, eggs, 
fruit, vegetables, cotton, etc. The farmers are not 
responsible for the price consumers pay. They are 
not now and never were responsible for the high cost 
of living. And the consumers should rejoice at the 
thought that the farmers soon will be in a position, 
through the help of the American Society of Equity, 
to cut out the mountains of profit that have been 
raised between the producers and the consumers. 

In the meantime it is important that the American 
people should know that both the price that the 
farmer gets and the price the consumer pays are 
made by organized speculators, trusts, middlemen 
and manufacturers. They say that prices are made 
by the law of supply and demand — which is the mer- 
est subterfuge. That law, under present conditions, 
is a myth and a fraud. It may be better called a ma- 
chine erected by the boards of trade to work in an or- 
ganized market, and directed against an unorganized 
source of supply. This machine is equipped with nu- 
merous levers, wheels and spigots. As you pull a 
lever of frosts, floods or drought, you reduce the 
supply, and prices go up. Turn a wheel of increased 
visible supply or open a spigot of favorable weather 
in the Argentine or elsewhere, and prices go down. 
And there are men who put in all their days and 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 115 

nights pulling levers, turning wheels and opening 
spigots. And thus it is that the farmers and the con- 
sumers alike are robbed and squeezed. 

We have seen that the farmer does not get high 
prices, that his annual average income is pitifully 
small, that the returns on his investment are meager, 
and that, not getting high prices for himself, he is 
not responsible for the high prices the consumer 
pays. And yet, confronting such a situation as this, 
all that the farmer asks is equity. Shall he not have 
it ? Ought any man, with a proper sense of obliga- 
tion to himself, to his family and to his country, to 
be satisfied with anything less than equity? Is it 
not what we all pretend to want for ourselves, and 
profess to be willing and eager to grant to others? 
The American farmer is very patient — proverbially 
so. He has been compared to Issachar, of whom we 
have this record in the Bible : 

"Issachar is a strong ass crouching down between 
two burdens, and he saw that rest was good and the 
land that it was pleasant, and bowed his shoulder to 
bear, and became a servant unto tribute." 

Rest may be good, and the land may be pleasant, 
but he who consents to become "a servant unto 
tribute" will know little of what is good or pleasant. 
It is on the patience and docility of the farmer that 
the capitalists and politicians have traded. And even 
now they are predicting the failure of the American 
Society of Equity, because, as they say, the farmer is 
contented and happy, and don't need it. Are they 



n6 THE THIRD POWER 

right? It is for the farmers themselves to say. If 
they want "rest" and would enjoy "pleasant" coun- 
try that they have made their own, they must make 
up their minds that they will have to free themselves 
from "tribute," assert their rights as American 
citizens, and at the same time show that moderation 
of which we all boast by demanding only what is 
equitable. So the American Society of Equity offers 
them the means by which they can demand and se- 
cure fair prices. 

The need of some such agency as this has been 
shown, and so far it appears that the American So- 
ciety of Equity is thoroughly adapted to meet the 
emergency, inasmuch as its aims, as thus far pointed 
out, are just what those of the farmer should be. 
It will be shown as we proceed that the other objects 
in view are quite as important as those already de- 
scribed. For the present we have the assurance that 
the society proposes to secure, or enable the farmers 
to secure, a fair price for their products, and to co- 
operate with them in securing facilities for holding 
or marketing products and in getting equity from 
those with whom they deal. 



CHAPTER XIII 

Then awake ye honest farmers, 

Producers one and all, 
And let us be united, 

For divided we must fall. 
Now a better day is dawning, 

When producers will be free, 
For Equity is coming 

Through our grand A. S. of E. 

Through Equity we'll conquer, 

No other way we can, 
For in Equity we acknowledge 

The brotherhood of man. 
In Equity there's justice, 

True principle of right ; 
Then let us join together, 

And work with all our might. 

There is not one thing that the American Society 
of Equity proposes to do that does not bear directly 
on the question of price. As we have seen, it is in- 
tended to secure equitable rates for transportation. 
The price he is to ask is the minimum price that he 
may decide is fair in some selected market, and then 
deduct from that the fair cost of transporting and 
handling the products. When the minimum price is 
decided upon then the smaller the amount he has to 
deduct on this account the more will there be left for 

117 



n8 THE THIRD POWER 

the farmer. With reasonable rates, and with his 
crops stored in elevators or warehouses owned by 
the American Society of Equity, or local unions of 
the same, so much larger will be the profits of the 
farmer. So the plan is to increase his income both 
by raising prices and by lowering the cost of moving, 
handling and marketing the crops. This latter, how- 
ever, is more in the interest of the consumer. What 
matters it to the farmer whether the middlemen or 
railroad charge 50 cents a bushel or $1 a cwt. for 
carrying his produce to market ? In his fundamental 
position he puts his price on the absolutely necessary 
articles of food and clothing before any other person 
or corporation can touch them. Therefore, he takes 
his profit — all that he wants or in equity should have 
— first. You can not fail to realize the strength of 
position of the farmer, when organized, by this 
illustration. Therefore, it is mainly to protect the 
consumer and secure the maximum market that he, 
through his society, will interest himself in the ele- 
vator charges, railroad rates, taxes, insurance and a 
thousand other things. None of these things can 
hurt the farmer when organized, but through his 
strength he can prevent them from working injury 
to others. 

It has been shown already what an influence the 
farmer could have on the railroads by simply putting 
himself in a position where he could refuse to ship 
unless the prices and freights were satisfactory to 
him. The railroads can not exist unless they have 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 119 

stuff to haul and plenty of it. They are dependent, 
directly or indirectly, on the farmer, and they can 
easily be made to feel their dependence. This ques- 
tion of transportation is a very large and important 
one, in that it involves the future development and 
settling up of the country. Indeed, the whole history 
of the march of men across this continent is a history 
of transportation. It has been said by some sup- 
posedly wise men that our people have moved west- 
ward along parallels of latitude. But it is not so. 
They moved along the watercourses, first down- 
stream, and then up-stream. Always the effort was 
to make transportation as easy as possible. And the 
railroads have contributed powerfully to the making 
of the country. We must give them full credit. Still 
when it comes to carrying the farmer's produce east 
they have not always been reasonable in their charge. 
And it seems to be probable that they are going to 
be more unreasonable as time goes on. While there 
was fierce competition competing points at least got 
the benefit of low rates, though non-competing points 
suffered severely. The railroads taxed the latter to 
make up for the low rates of necessity granted to the 
former. Certain sections have been discriminated 
against ; all rates have often been too high, and some 
rates have always been too high. But it has been 
suggested that the situation may get worse for the 
farmer. If the tendency toward railroad consolida- 
tion goes on we may see an end to competition. It 
is certain that the purpose of combination is to check 



120 THE THIRD POWER 

and control competition. If it succeeds the farmer 
will be forced to look out for his own interests. He 
should be in a position to say that he will not ship 
at all unless he can be sure of a fair net price on the 
farm for the products of his own toil. 

The farmer is often told that the railroads are his 
friends. He himself need not be an enemy to the 
railroads in order to realize that there are no friend- 
ships in the business world. That world is a world 
of struggle and conquest. In that struggle the 
strongest win. Under present conditions the rail- 
roads will be as fair to the farmer as it pays them to 
be. Under the conditions which it is proposed to 
create they will be as fair as the farmer can compel 
them to be. Other men use the power that they pos- 
sess, often in illegal and criminal ways, to coerce the 
railroads into favoring them. It is not intended that 
the farmers shall do anything illegal or criminal, 
but it is meant that they should realize that these 
unfair concessions are paid for by less powerful and 
favorable shippers, the farmers among them. So it 
is important that these latter should stand up for 
their own rights. If all shippers were treated equally 
there is reason to believe that freight rates could be 
reduced considerably, to the great benefit of the 
whole country. 

Further, in the vast reorganization schemes of 
which we have heard so much, some of the railroads 
have been over-capitalized just as other industries 
have. And the farmer has to pay enough to enable 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 121 

these roads to pay interest and make dividends on 
their vast issues of bonds and stocks that don't rep- 
resent real value. He may well question the fairness 
of this arrangement. At any rate, the American So- 
ciety of Equity will give some attention to this vital 
question of transportation. The individual farmer 
can not fight the railroads, but he can make a good 
showing as a member of a great and powerful or- 
ganization numbering a million or more, made up of 
farmers all over the country determined to get their 
rights. Mr. John D. Rockfeller, who knows some- 
thing of the virtues of combination, and who has re- 
cently been engaged in an effort to secure control of 
large systems of railroads, says : 

"To fight the battle alone is to be lost. Association 
with others is an absolute necessity if we would be 
successful. In union there is strength and success. 
We can see this illustration every day in the business 
world." 

Mr. Rockefeller is right. Especially is organiza- 
tion necessary for the farmers who are at the present 
moment unorganized themselves, fighting organiza- 
tions in practically every branch of industry. Mr. 
Rockefeller's reference to the "business world" does 
not at present include the farmers. Everybody knows 
that they are not considered business people. But is 
it not time for them to get into the business world ? 
What is good for one class of people who produce, 
manufacture and sell, is good for others. If "in 
union there is strength and success" for Rockefeller 



122 THE THIRD POWER 

and his associates, why would it not mean strength 
and success for the farmers? A good many years 
ago the Chinese were oppressed and harried by the 
civilized nations of the world very much as they are 
to-day. The people of China could make no head- 
way against the trained soldiers of Europe. Finally 
a formidable rebellion broke out in the empire, and 
the authorities secured the services of that great 
Christian soldier, Charles George Gordon, who or- 
ganized his Ever Victorious Army, and with it sup- 
pressed the rebellion without losing a single battle. 
No better army followed a gallant leader to victory. 
And to-day, if there were another Gordon at the head 
of a Chinese army, he might sweep Russia out of 
Manchuria and compel all the powers of the world 
to respect the integrity and the sovereignty of that 
ancient empire. Yet precisely the thing that the 
Chinese lacked was the power of organization and 
cooperation. But when they did act together it was 
with decisive results. 

It can be so with the American farmers. They, 
too, have been oppressed and harried by highly or- 
ganized bands of marauders, and they have been 
unable to protect themselves simply because they 
have not acted together. What we want to see is an 
Ever Victorious Army of American farmers, which 
shall fight, not for conquest, but in righteous defense 
of their rights, their families and themselves. Their 
victory, which will be sure, will redound to their own 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 123 

honor and prosperity and to the welfare of the whole 
country. We want a new declaration of independ- 
ence and a new independence day. God grant that 
it will come speedily. 



CHAPTER XIV 

Thus the syndicates and bankers 

Always crying out for bonds, 
With both feet on the neck of labor, 

While they're clipping their coupons. 
With their palace cars and banquets 

They can pass their time away, 
And you old honest farmers 

Will have their banquet bill to pay. 

There are many corporations 

That's no better now than knaves; 
For they pay starvation wages 

And make men and women slaves; 
And they work the little children 

In their sweat-shops day by day, 
And to fill the rich man's coffers 

They must wear their life away. 

In the daily papers a year ago was this interesting 
item: 

"An increase of $4,500,000 in the capital stock of 
Deere & Co. was announced here to-day. The pres- 
ent capital of the concern is $1,500,000, and the 
stockholders have voted to increase this to $6,000,- 
000. The additional capital is to provide for the re- 
markable growth and expansion of the business dur- 
ing the past few years and the further increase that 
is assured. It has all been subscribed by the present 
owners." 

124 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 125 

Of course this meant that the farmers will have to 
pay the dividends on this quadrupled stock in the 
price of agricultural implements made by this firm. 
And this brings to the front another one of the ob- 
jects of the American Society of Equity, which is to 
enable the farmer to buy advantageously. It is a" 
fact that the farmers frequently pay much more for 
their farm supplies than is necessary to insure a fair 
profit to the manufacturer and the merchant. As I 
write a letter comes from a member in Oklahoma. 
He says : "I am paying 2 per cent, per month for 
money to meet current expenses so I can hold my 
wheat for $1." Must such sacrifice and determina- 
tion go unrewarded? Would any banker dare 
charge a farmer 24 per cent, a year if they were thor- 
oughly organized? Besides, the margin of profit 
placed on goods sold to the farmers is often much 
greater than that added to goods sold to the people 
of the towns and cities. The reason is clear. In 
trading, the farmer is not an independent person. 
He does business as the merchant or manufacturer 
dictates. He is usually a debtor to the implement 
dealer and the storekeeper, whereas if he had cash 
to pay for his supplies he could buy more cheaply in 
any market in the country. Wherever the farmer 
turns to make his purchases he finds himself face to 
face with a trust or union. He is worsted in the 
encounter and loses some of the legitimate results of 
his work when he puts his unorganized skill and la- 
bor against the organized efforts of the union la- 



126 THE THIRD POWER 

borer. He loses again in the encounter with the or- 
ganized miners who mine the steel — or, rather, the 
iron from which the steel is made — which enters into 
his implements. He loses when he meets the wood- 
workers, the wagonmakers, the furniture makers, the 
implement makers, the horseshoers, the threshermen, 
the milk handlers, the carpenters, the masons who 
build his buildings, the armies who manufacture the 
household articles, the clothing, the army of leather 
workers, and behind them the army of tanners, the 
armies which run the railroads, and the armies which 
run the trains over the roads to haul to market the 
products of the farmer. The farmer does not drive 
a nail, use a pin, lift a hoe or spade, coil a rope, or 
turn a furrow but he pays tribute to some one of the 
numerous armies arrayed against him. Day and 
night, night and day, he is being taxed for the sup- 
port of these armies, all because he is meeting them 
single-handed, can not resist their encroachments, 
nor pass the tax along. Plainly he needs help to en- 
able him to buy advantageously, which will be, large- 
ly again, in the interest of the consumer. 

And this it is hoped to give him. Considering 
the great number of farmers who will be members 
of the American Society of Equity, and the fact that 
they will soon have a good cash balance as the result 
of selling at profitable prices, there can be no doubt 
that they will be able to purchase for cash and at the 
lowest prevailing prices. Even if the farmer buys 
his supplies with his own produce, his ability to put 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 127 

a price on it will enable him to turn it in at higher 
figure than is now possible. He will no longer be 
under the necessity of asking for long credit, and 
whatever credit he may need he will get on the same 
favorable terms that other business men receive. 
Mention has already been made of the combination 
among the threshing men, which enables them_Jp_ 



charge seven cents a bushel for threshing. If a 
farmer were able to say to the thresher that he would 
pay five or four cents, and that no farmer in the 
United States would pay a cent more, and if this 
was an equitable price, he would get his threshing 
done for four or five cents. This is the position in 
which the American Society of Equity would place 
every farmer in the country with reference to buy- Jv 
ing. ^Probably as much money is lost to the farmer ^ 
"by exorbitant prices which he has to pay as by the 
inadequate prices which he is compelled to take. 
He loses in both directions. It is time to stop the 
loss. The farmers can do it if they will, for they 
have the power, and their interest demands that they 
should use it. If they apply it properly, that is, 
through organization, the result can not be doubtful. 
In seeking to buy at fair prices the farmer, 
through the American Society of Equity, will help 
all the people. Economically the struggle of man 
is for cheapness. Men in trying to satisfy their wants 
always endeavor to do so as cheaply as possible. 
The call for cheapness by the farmer has, in the 
past, been of necessity, and this necessity has been of 



128 THE THIRD POWER 

such a degree that they not only got cheapness but 
nastiness — low grade. Witness the volume of trade 
to some catalogue houses, where the chief recom- 
mendation was cheapness. The success of the Amer- 
ican Society of Equity will benefit the home dealer 
who will keep a high grade of goods and sell at 
equitable prices. We look for a turning from the 
cheap, low grades, to high grade goods at equitable 
prices. 

We have seen how the price of farm products has 
been influenced by this tendency, and also how manu- 
facturers combine to resist the tendency. Every new 
invention, every new process, every application of a 
newly discovered force, and every improved applica- 
tion of a well-known force, contribute to bring about 
cheapness. The old force of competition vorks 
toward the end. But recently we have had a great 
advance of prices with no effective effort to resist the 
advance. 

- The farmers propose to take the field in a cam- 
paign for lower prices on the things they buy where 
lower prices should prevail, and they are going to 
use a force the operation of which will be irresistible. 
It is not so much a high price or a low price, but 
an equitable price all around that is demanded. 
The entrance of the Third Power through the 
American Society of Equity into the economic prob- 
lems of the world marks an epoch in the history of 
the race. Although the last of the great powers to 
be organized, it is yet the fundamental or first power 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 129 

or force which will dominate all others. The devel- 
opment of this society and the power it will repre- 
sent and wield may be compared with the develop- 
ment of the force, electricity, which has revolution- 
ized the industrial world. The awakening of the 
agricultural classes, the organization of them into a 
great national and international cooperative body, 
which is now being accomplished, will make possible 
the control by them of practically all the material 
that enters into the manufacturing and commerce 
of the world, and on which human and animal life 
depend. Such a revolution might appall us were it 
not for the fact that in working out this stupendous 
movement everything will be in the direction of 
improvement and better conditions for everybody 
and for every legitimate enterprise. 

It will be so in the matter of prices. There will 
not be one price for the farmer and another for the 
working man and professional man. Whatever con- 
quests the farmers win in this direction will be for 
the benefit of all. What the farmer gets, all will get. 
In fighting his own battle the farmer will fight the 
battle of every American citizen. It will be impos- 
sible to charge the farmer a fair price and to charge 
other classes an unfair price. So the American So- 
ciety of Equity does not come to oppress or enslave 
any class, but to give liberty and independence to the 
greatest class of citizens, and through that to all oth- 
ers — not to destroy or cripple any institution, but to 
benefit and strengthen all institutions, including the 



130 THE THIRD POWER 

government itself. Heretofore farmers thought 
when organizing they must fight every institution 
on earth to get their right. This we admit is human 
nature, but also is a relic of barbarism. There are 
too many such relics remaining. The farmers really 
have no fight against anybody or anything ; all they 
need is equity, and this they can take, regardless of 
the disposition of other parties. 

Many schemes have been devised, and many more 
suggested, for the regulation and control of trusts. 
The law does something, and more stringent legal 
enactments might do more. But no curb can be as 
effectual as an organization of American citizens 
greater and stronger than the trusts themselves. 
Through this and through this alone can trust ex- 
tortion be prevented, and fair treatment be secured 
for all. The people can do it for them. And the 
trust magnates understand this. With the help of 
shrewd and unscrupulous attorneys they can usually 
find a way to evade the most formidable statute, and 
to organize so as to get within the letter of the law. 
But they could make little headway with the people 
organized against them, and when the farmers are 
organized the people will be organized. How could 
the cotton or woolen manufacturers get along with- 
out the farmer's cotton or wool, or the packers with- 
out his cattle ? This but indicates the power which 
the farmer could exert as a member of the American 
Society of Equity. He could oppose his trust — if 
you choose to call it so — to the manufacturing trusts, 



•FARMERS TO THE FRONT 131 

and in such a contest the farmer must, of necessity, 
win. This is a force — this new force, this Third 
Power — which the industrial trusts would under- 
stand and respect. Thus organized, the farmers 
could meet their enemies and oppressors on their 
own ground, and overthrow them, if necessary, for 
the common good. The trust problem would be 
solved, and solved in such a way as to benefit all. 
And the farmer, enabled both to buy and sell advan- 
tageously, would enjoy a prosperity and freedom 
such as he has never known, and that prosperity and 
freedom would be shared by all our people. The 
world has been waiting long for this Third Power. 
Now it is at hand. 






CHAPTER XV 

If farmers were only half as persistent 
As politicians are wholly inconsistent, 

What a different footstool ! 
They walk up to the secret voting booths, 
The aged and younger and hopeful youths, 
And vote for men that others may choose 

Over them to rule. 

The farmer produces the wealth of the land; 
In framing the laws he should take a hand — 

Insist upon his rights. 
He feeds the whole world by sweat and toil, 
Forces great crops from the resisting soil, 
From famine a safe and shielding foil, 

And no wrong incites. 

Something has been said of the influence that the 
farmer can exert through organization on the poli- 
tics of the country. One of the purposes of the 
American Society of Equity is to enable him to 
exert such influence. Here, again, it is not because 
the farmers, organized, need to look to politics for 
relief or strength on their account, but for the gen- 
eral welfare of humanity. The farmers, through 
their society, not only intend to do equity, but to get 
equity; not only to give equity, but to demand 
equity. It is not the object of the society to become 

132 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 133 

a political party. But it is intended to secure, 
through already existing parties, laws in the interest 
of agriculture. Though legislation is not the first 
thing sought, nor the most important thing, legis- 
lation is nevertheless needed. The reason that it 
has not been secured is that the politicians, though 
prolific in promises, when seeking election, forget all 
about the farmers when they get to Washington. 
They quickly fall under other influences. More- 
over, they know that the farmers are easily put off; 
that they do not persist in the pursuit of their aims, 
and that when election day comes round again they 
may be trusted to support the party, readily accept- 
ing excuses and trusting to new promises. Nor are 
the farmers adequately represented in Congress by 
men of their own class. Thus they are largely with- 
out influence in shaping legislation. Until they are 
in a position, through cooperation, to secure what 
they want, progress will be slow. With the Ameri- 
can Society of Equity a success, all these things can 
be rapidly accomplished. 

It is not necessary to set out here all that the coun- 
try needs in the way of legislation. But some things 
may be mentioned. Possibly the first and most im- 
portant thing is some lightening of the burden of 
taxation; and this also implies less extravagance 
with the people's money, less graft, rake-offs and 
boodle, or, in short, the money wisely and econom- 
ically expended, when we will see greater results 
with less tax. The farmer is taxed on everything 



134 THE THIRD POWER 

he buys and yet is protected on scarcely anything he 
sells. This is an evil that must be righted, and it 
can be righted, but only by the combined efforts of 
the farmers. Until there are such efforts nothing 
will be done. As long as there are a few people who 
can control the taxing power of the government, 
and many people who are content to have that power 
so used, it is idle to hope for relief. The few will 
control as long as the many allow them to control — 
and not one moment longer. Even the slightest 
measure of relief is denied at the present time. Op- 
portunities have long been presented for making 
reciprocal commercial treaties with foreign nations 
that would have had the effect of making a much 
larger market for farm products, but they have in- 
variably been put aside at the dictation of selfish 
interests demanding protection. Treaty after treaty 
of this sort has been killed or allowed to die in the 
Senate, which has been indifferent to the welfare 
of the farmer if only the protected industries were 
allowed to have a monopoly of the home market. 
Rather than remove or lower the duty on one article 
manufactured in New England, our Congress has 
preferred to allow the farmer to get along as best he 
could — to find his own market. Yet when protec- 
tion hurts a certain corporation, Congress is quick 
to grant a rebate of the tax on any product that goes 
into a manufactured article when that article is ex- 
ported. But nothing is done for the farmer. 

Yet there are many millions of foreigners who 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 135 

could be taught to consume the fine cereals and 
meats produced on our American farms, if an earnest 
and well-directed effort were made to open and 
cultivate foreign markets. Lower taxes and wider 
markets could thus both be secured by legislation, 
and the American Society of Equity will work for 
such legislation, bringing directly to bear on Con- 
gress the influence of over 10,000,000 American 
voters who now play little part in the business of 
lawmaking. This constant failure of the efforts to 
secure reciprocity has another bad effect on the 
farmer, for it provokes retaliation on the part of 
other countries from which the farmer even now 
suffers, and will suffer still more. Our fruits, cattle 
and meat products have been made the subjects of 
discriminating taxes and vexatious inspection im- 
posed and resorted to by foreign governments in 
retaliation for exorbitant duties levied by our gov- 
ernment on their exports to this country. There 
are threats' of further retaliation, and we even hear 
talk of a European combination to save the Euro- 
pean markets from the so-called American invasion. 
Yet we go on in the same old way, and our manu- 
facturers get even for the low prices at which they 
must sell abroad, by charging the home consumer 
greatly higher prices. Thus the farmers are kept 
out of foreign markets that they ought to have, sim- 
ply that the manufacturers may plunder the home 
market. 

Such arrangements as these are plainly not the 



136 THE THIRD POWER 

work of the farmers or of the friends of the farmer. 
They were devised by men who understood per- 
fectly that the agricultural class is docile, patient, 
and most easily fleeced. The farmer is not inter- 
ested in paying taxes for the benefit of people who 
never seek to benefit him, in narrowing the market 
for farm products, or in provoking retaliation from 
foreign governments. What he wants is freedom, 
equity, fair play to all, markets as wide as the world, 
low taxes — and not one of these things is his at the 
present time. With all these, and with the American 
Society of Equity at work in his behalf, he probably 
would need little else from the government. But 
whatever he needed, he would get. For the politi- 
cians, who now so quickly forget the farmer, would 
realize that it was dangerous to do so, if they found 
that they were dealing with a great organization 
acting as a unit — an organization that refused to 
accept promises as legal tender, but that insisted on 
a redemption of those promises in honesty and good 
faith. Thus may the farmers make their influence 
felt in the condition of affairs which is rightfully 
theirs. The Third Power can easily defeat the first, 
second or third house. The farmers will be ignored 
as long as it is safe to ignore them, and no longer. 
The thing to do is to make it unsafe. The American 
Society of Equity is the means to bring that result 
to pass. 



CHAPTER XVI 

Of all the modern ideas, 

In the North, South, East or West, 
The justice bringing idea 

Of Equity is best. 
It can harm no human calling, 

And can boast none o'er the rest; 
But brings equal chance to all of them, 

And therefore it's the best. 

Manifestly it will be impossible for the farmers 
to cooperate unless they are kept thoroughly in- 
formed of what is going on in every part of the coun- 
try, and indeed of the world. It would be foolish, 
to take a simple case, to attempt to fix and maintain 
a price on farm products unless each member knew 
what that price was. This information, at least, 
must be regularly furnished. It will be conveyed to 
the various members of the society through their 
official paper, which is a part of the plan. This offi- 
cial organ will be printed four times a month as 
soon as the society is sufficiently organized, and 
there can be little doubt that with this plan in opera- 
tion the recommended price will be printed by all 
the other daily and weekly papers as regularly as 
the markets are reported now. The recommended 
price will have to be printed by all newspapers hav- 

137 



138 THE THIRD POWER 

ing a market department, for it will also be the mar- 
ket price. 

With this knowledge, concert of action will be 
easy. For every member of the society will have 
the same price and the same advice about the 
same crop at the same time, and, feeling sure 
that purchasers can not get those products from 
any one else for less than they can get them from 
him, he will be under no temptation to sell for less 
himself. Without this knowledge it would be wholly 
impossible to make the scheme work. But further 
than this, it is felt that the members of the society 
should have information that would convince them 
that prices agreed on are fair and reasonable — and 
attainable. So it is proposed, through the local 
unions or members, to carry on a system of crop re- 
porting that will surpass anything ever before ac- 
complished, or even attempted. Every member will 
be a crop reporter. The present system, or lack of 
system, of reporting crops is the source of great loss 
to the farmers. Take wheat, for instance : The har- 
vest begins in Texas in May and ends in the Dako- 
tas about September. Yet, as a matter of fact, crops 
are maturing and harvests are in progress in some 
part of the world every day in the year. From the 
beginning to the end of the harvest in this country, 
and more or less every day in the year, false crop 
reports are circulated, the yields are exaggerated, 
damage from weather, insects, etc., is emphasized, 
and all manner of frauds and deceptions are prac- 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 139 

tised. The result is that the market fluctuates every- 
day, and often several times a day, until the poor 
bewildered farmer sells rather than holds against 
uncertainties. The government reports, from the 
very conditions under which they are obtained, 
can not be more than reasonably good guesses, 
and consequently they are not held in good repute. 
So much discredit has sometimes been placed upon 
them that the market has been known to have acted 
in exactly the opposite way from that in which the 
reports should have influenced it. 

So, the American Society of Equity will see to it 
that the farmers have full and accurate reports of 
conditions and crops. The size of the yield, and the 
character of the product; the nature of the season, 
whether favorable or unfavorable — all this will the 
members of the society get. Each member will be 
in a position to report the exact condition of grow- 
ing crops on his own farm, and also yields and quan- 
tities on hand. He can also give a correct report of 
his neighbor's crop, if that neighbor does not belong 
to the society. These reports will be given to the 
secretary at each meeting, to be forwarded, or will 
be sent to headquarters, direct by members, where 
they will be tabulated by statisticians, and in this 
way more accurate results will be secured than could 
be obtained in any other way. The crop reports and 
market conditions will be sent to each member, and 
thus all will be able to cooperate* in asking and ob- 
taining uniform prices. This is not only one of the 



140 THE THIRD POWER 

strongest features of the proposed plan — it is an ab- 
solutely essential feature. With such trustworthy 
information, prices can be adjusted in such a way as 
to be equitable to both producer and consumer. 
Without this information such adjustment would 
be impossible. 

But other information of an educational sort will 
be furnished by the American Society of Equity. 
Reference has already been made to the work of ag- 
ricultural schools and colleges, but valuable as this 
work is, it does not meet the requirements. The 
time has arrived when more intensive farming must 
be practised, and conditions will soon be such that 
our farms must produce two or three times as much 
as they do now, if they are to supply the ever-increas- 
ing demands of the world. It is a fact that the aver- 
age of our staple crops can be raised to three times 
the present average. This has been done in Euro- 
pean countries, and what is done there can be dupli- 
cated here. Intensive farming implies more intelli- 
gent farming. To farm more intelligently, the people 
must be educated in the mysteries of the science. To 
educate them schools must be established and main- 
tained. There are, at present, many agricultural 
schools and colleges, but they are not sufficient for 
the almost universal education of the young people 
from the farms which will be required when the 
American Society of Equity is in successful opera- 
tion. Nor do they fully meet the requirements of 
the advanced agriculture that must be practised in 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 141 

the near future. The schools and other institutions 
which it is proposed to establish should be the meet- 
ing-place of farmers within the neighborhood, and 
they should be looked to for enlightenment on the 
intricate matters related to seed, soil, fertilizers and 
cultivation. Each farm should be plotted; there 
should be a chart giving the analysis of the soil in 
each field, or parts of fields; and recommendations 
should be made regarding the plant food needed to 
produce 40 bushels of wheat, 80 bushels of oats, 
100 bushels of corn and 250 bushels of potatoes, 
etc., to the acre. Such an institution could be of 
vast help in giving instruction concerning drainage, 
irrigation, breeding, stock, grain, fruits, vegetables; 
it could help in stamping out disease, fighting insects 
and blight, analyzing seeds for impurities, and 
guarding against and eradicating weeds. It could, 
and would, award prizes and medals for the best 
stock, the most successful crops, and in many ways 
it would guard and promote farmers' interests in 
the highest degree. The education which the sons 
and daughters of the farmer would get at these 
schools, at a merely nominal expense, would be of 
the greatest value, in that it would greatly increase 
their efficiency, and what is even more important, 
would give them a pride in and make them content 
with their lot in life. A membership of 5,000 for 
each such institution, and annual dues of $5, would 
afford a revenue of $25,000, from which enormous 
benefits would flow. And as agriculture is the foun- 



142 THE THIRD POWER 

dation of our national prosperity, we should strive 
to promote the most intelligent conditions on the 
farms to the end that our material prosperity may be 
large and perpetual. 

Yet the qualification that has already been made 
must not be forgotten. All this education, as far 
as it involves the raising of larger crops, and an in- 
crease in productiveness of the land, would be ca- 
lamitous unless the farmer also had the power to 
fix the price of his products. But with this power 
assured, and the American Society of Equity will 
assure it, the more education and the larger produc- 
tion there are, the better will it be for all. The two 
things hang together. The farmer must control the 
present supply before he devotes himself to the work 
of increasing it. And the greater his success in in- 
creasing it, the greater is the necessity that he should 
have the situation wholly within his own control. 



CHAPTER XVII 

The cause of Equity is good; 

It seeks not its own gain, 
Against the weak ones of the earth, 

Who toil 'mid want and pain; 
It welcomes all within its band, 

The strong as well as weak; 
Its motto is, "Cooperate," 

Each other's good to seek. 

The cause of Equity is just; 

It lends a helping hand 
In lifting up a mighty force — 

The third power in our land. 
That is the struggle it may win 

Against foes unafraid, 
Who wish to cause its overthrow, 

It needs each farmer's aid. 

All this means, what cooperation must ever mean, 
unity and solidarity among the people cooperating. 
The farmers, instead of being strangers to one an- 
other and rivals and competitors of one another, 
will be friends and fellow helpers. This will be a 
great gain, and in many ways. Every person will 
be the better for knowing that he is a member of 
a great society the object of which is the good of all. 
He will know that while he is working for others, 
others are working for him, and that out of the com- 
bined effort good must come to the whole agricul- 

143 



144 THE THIRD POWER 

tural class, and indeed to all other classes. There 
will be such an incentive to work and sacrifice as the 
American farmer has never known. The very sense 
of unity will be a great stimulus. Other men have 
found it so. They all have their organizations — 
manufacturers, working men, lawyers and physi- 
cians, etc., and these minister to their pride in their 
calling, and help to make that calling honorable and 
profitable. The farmers should learn from the ex- 
perience of other workers unity, combination, coop- 
eration, mutual helpfulness, each for all and all for 
each, instead of the fierce guerrilla warfare of com- 
petition — these are along the lines of present-day 
tendencies, and are the products of what we may 
truthfully call natural forces. 

And it all strengthens the influences which make 
for self-help. There are many things that the farm- 
ers can do in combination that they never can do 
under the present individualistic system. It would 
be difficult to show, for instance, why farmers should 
not carry their own insurance. It has been abund- 
antly demonstrated that fire risks on farm properties 
exclusively can be written at only a small fraction 
of what the old companies now charge. The haz- 
ard is slight, and of course it would be slighter still 
if each farmer were interested as a stockholder in 
the company which would have to pay for losses. 
Already there are farmers' insurance companies op- 
erating in various parts of the country, to the great 
satisfaction of their members. But whether it be 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 145 

through local companies or through one central 
company, the farmers certainly ought to carry their 
own fire insurance. It is the same with life insur- 
ance. This insurance, if limited to the agricultural 
class, can easily be offered at a lower rate than that 
charged by companies that take all classes of risks 
up to the extra-hazardous. And with improved con- 
ditions on the farm, which it is intended to secure, 
life will be prolonged, and the farmer will become an 
even more desirable risk than he is now. This is 
incidental, and is not involved in the main plan, but 
it is important as being one of many things which 
the farmers may, and should, do for themselves. 
They even might, as has been suggested, in time, be- 
come their own bankers. 

Viewed in this way the field of the American So- 
ciety of Equity is almost limitless. It is remarkable 
how everything that is suggested contributes to sol- 
idarity. For example, the society will exert its in- 
fluence to secure the improvement of the highways, 
toward which something has already been done. 
The amount of money that the farmers lose each 
year by bad and impassable roads is almost incalcu- 
lable. The light loads which they are often com- 
pelled to haul, the wear on wagons and stock, the 
often enforced loss of a favorable opportunity to sell 
through the inability to get to town at all — all this 
is costly and wasteful. We all realize what the rail- 
roads have done for the farmer in the way of open- 
ing up markets, and we know that if the rail- 



146 THE THIRD POWER 

roads were allowed to get out of repair they would 
be of much less service. Insufficient or worn-out 
rolling stock, broken-down locomotives, unsafe 
tracks, weakened bridges, poor terminal facilities or 
none at all, would cost the farmer millions of dol- 
lars. It is precisely so in the case of wagon roads. 
When these are good and easy to be traveled every 
day in the year, there is just so much added to the 
value of the farm. When they are impassable, the 
value of the farm is lessened by just that much. 

But this is not the whole story, one of the terrors 
of the farm is isolation and loneliness. Against 
these the American Society of Equity proposes to 
wage war by improving or compelling the improve- 
ment of the highways, in order that, among other 
things, there may be an increased social intercourse 
among the farmers. Good roads and human rela- 
tionships alike tend to bind men together. Present 
conditions, on many American farms, have been 
beautifully and truthfully described by Meredith 
Nicholson in his poem, "Watching the World Go 
By": 

Swift as a meteor and as quickly gone 
A train of cars darts swiftly through the night ; 

Scorning the wood and fiefd it hurries on, 
A thing of wrathful might. 

There, from the farmer's home a woman's eyes, 
Roused by the sudden jar and passing flare, 

Follow the speeding phantom till it dies, — 
An echo on the air. 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 147 

Narrow the life that always has been hers, 
The evening brings a longing to her breast ; 

Deep in her heart some aspiration stirs, 
And mocks her soul's unrest. 

Her tasks are mean and endless as the days, 
And sometimes love can not repay all things; 

An instrument that rudely touched obeys, 
Becomes discordant strings. 

The train that followed in the headlight's glare, 

Bound for the city and a larger world, 
Made emphasis on her poor life of care, 

As from her sight it whirled. 

Thus from all lonely hearts the great earth rolls, 
Indifferent though one woman grieve and die, 

Along its iron track are many souls 
That watch the world go by. 

Is it not so ? There is a spiritual side to this ques- 
tion of life on the farm that we can not safely ig- 
nore. And the man who is not deeply interested in 
making farm life all that it should be, and can be, is 
not fit to be an American citizen. We may not be 
able to bring the farm to the world, but we can take 
something of the world, its life, its virtues, 
its beauty and its intellectual stimulus to the farm. 
Something of this has been done already, as has been 
shown, but more remains to be done. We can not 
cure human discontent and dissatisfaction, but we 
can, and must, as far as possible, destroy those con- 
ditions which give discontent and dissatisfaction a 
reason for being. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

The time has surely now come to pass 
When farmers should arise in solid mass 

And throttle wrong. 
They are the ordained rulers of the earth, 
So intended from the day of creation's birth. 
Without their help what'd our land be worth? 

Arise, be strong! 

General irrigation of the farms, the prevention of 
food adulteration, the settling of disputes without 
recourse to the courts, and the organization in other 
surplus-producing countries of societies similar to 
the American Society of Equity, are all within the 
scope of this movement; and they all have a direct 
bearing on the problem to be solved. With a con- 
stantly fertile and productive soil, freed from the 
wrongful competition of base and fraudulent prod- 
ucts, relieved from the vexations and delays of liti- 
gation, and bound together with his fellows all over 
the world in a society seeking the good of all, the 
American farmer will be his own master, and will 
enjoy a peace, prosperity and dignity such as he 
never before knew. 

Such will be the general result. Particularly, the 
farmer will find that the value of his land will 
increase from 25 to 100 per cent. Producing more 

148 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 149 

value, the farms will, of course, be worth more. 
It has been said that the capital invested in farm- 
ing amounts to twenty billions of dollars, most 
of which is, of course, in land. This could easily 
be doubled, by making the farms more productive 
of money. Reference has been made to the action 
of a certain corporation in quadrupling its stock. 
This is common in the commercial world. Is 
it not in order for the farmers to declare their 
farms and plants worth four times the old value? 
It is quite the style for manufacturers of agri- 
cultural implements to quadruple their fortunes 
by the simple act of making a declaration to that 
effect, and then to put the price of their goods on a 
basis that will enable them to pay dividends on the 
increased capitalization. If the farmers must pay 
prices for their plows, cultivators and other ma- 
chinery that makes such things possible for the man- 
ufacturers, why not put up the price of grain and 
farm produce so that the earning capacity of farms 
will be increased to such an extent that farmers also 
may declare their capital stock to be four times as 
great as it was ? 

But this would not be a case of simple "marking 
up," for the real value of the farms would be in- 
creased. With fair prices, close and intelligent cul- 
tivation, equitable laws for all, wide foreign markets, 
reciprocity, good roads, irrigation, information as to 
actual crop and market conditions, ability to direct 
produce to the best markets, systematic marketing 



150 THE THIRD POWER 

and organization, farm lands would rise in value 
greatly, and every farmer and the whole country 
would be the richer. On such a firmly established 
basis as this our national prosperity could hardly be 
shaken. As has been pointed out, the farmer could 
and would spend more money for improvements, 
more for education, and more for both necessities 
and luxuries. Indeed, things that are now luxuries 
would speedly become necessities. The certainty of 
the business, as contrasted with the present uncer- 
tainty, would put a new life and spirit into the 
farmers. They would be proud of their occupation, 
and happy and contented in it. Travel, books, pic- 
tures, better clothes, better house furnishings, more 
amusements, and a wider and fuller life, would all 
be in reach of the farmers. There would be no need 
of pinching economy in the good years to insure 
against distress in the bad years. Having a certain 
profit from their products, they would spend it free- 
ly, and every industry in the country would be bene- 
fited — even beyond the dreams of the past — thus ben- 
efiting every man, woman and child. The improve- 
ments that the farmer would feel that it was worth 
while to make would still further increase the value 
of the farms, and thus in every possible material way 
the improvement would be tremendous. The men 
on the farms would not have to work as hard as they 
do now, and they could shorten their working day, 
thus gaining time for other things. With a larger 
margin of profit, they would not be driven to raise 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 151 

the largest possible crops in order to make a bare 
living. There would be less drudgery and more 
rational enjoyment, and thus rural life would take a 
charm which it so sadly lacks under present condi- 
tions. There would be more money, fewer notes in 
bank, possibly no mortgages, and with it a general 
ease and security which present uncertainty and 
anxiety make quite impossible. The farmer is the 
last man who should feel any anxiety, and yet 
anxiety seems to be almost his special foe. It grows 
out of the uncertainty that he feels in regard to his 
income from year to year, the inevitable result of 
uncertainty of weather, yields and prices and his 
sense of helplessness. It is from these things that he 
is asked to emancipate himself. Think for a moment 
of the effect that freedom of this sort has on the 
minds of men. They at once begin to feel that many 
things are worth while which never seemed to be so 
before. Even life itself becomes more worth while. 
This freedom would encourage the farmer to im- 
prove his property, to make his home more pleasant 
and attractive, would increase his pride in his occu- 
pation, keep his interest up to the mark and his mind 
on the alert, and would make his life the joy that it 
ought to be. To sum up : The effect of the Ameri- 
can Society of Equity will be to benefit the farmers 
of the United States and of the world and all other 
businesses as well, for they are all dependent on the 
farm. It will mean higher education, better citizen- 
ship, less poverty, misery and crime, lower taxes, 



152 THE THIRD POWER 

fewer saloons, more schools and more innocent places 
of amusement. Present uncertainties as to price will 
be removed, farm values will increase, thus adding 
billions of dollars to the wealth of the country. Busi- 
ness everywhere will be stimulated, and there will 
be a more equal distribution of wealth, a much larger 
proportion of it remaining in the country. Specula- 
tion in the products of the farm will be done away 
with, and all its evil effects on those products and on 
the people who watch the board and ticker will van- 
ish. The success of the American Society of Equity 
will make it possible for the farmers whose tastes 
run in that direction to have comfortable and even 
luxurious homes, and will make of the country a 
veritable paradise. And prosperity will be general 
and permanent because based on the prosperity of 
that industry on which all other industries depend. 
An ambitious program surely, but it can be carried 
out if the farmers will but loyally and intelligently 
cooperate. This is no dream — or, if it is, it is one that 
can be easily realized. The farmers of the United 
States can make it come true. The future of the 
United States of America is the future of agricul- 
ture ; mark this prediction. So the appeal is to the 
patriotic as well as to the selfish motives of the farm- 
ers. Through their salvation the salvation of the 
country must be worked out. 



CHAPTER XIX 

Cooperate ! Cooperate ! 

If you would keep the boys 
Contented with the farmer's lot, 

A sharer of his joys. 
Lift them above the path that you 

Of old were wont to walk, 
A humdrum round of drudgery, 

Where wolves of want close stalk. 

Cooperate ! Cooperate ! 

The good wife needs a rest, 
For she has shared your burdens long, 

Your true friend and your best. 
Through countless tasks and thankless toil 

Her youth was gladly spent, 
But now the load too heavy lies 

Upon her shoulders bent. 

There are many problems that are troubling our 
wise men a good deal that will be solved by the suc- 
cessful operation of this plan. A few of them may 
well claim our attention. We have all read the 
mournful lamentation over the unwillingness of 
young men to remain on the farms. The tendency 
of population is, we are told, constantly toward the 
cities. And the tendency is growing stronger all the 
while. The percentage of the city to the total popu- 
lation is larger than it was ten years ago, it being 

153 



154 THE THIRD POWER 

41 per cent, in 1890, and 47 per cent., counting in 
towns of 1,000 population and over, in 1900. The 
growth of cities in the United States is one of the 
most marked features in our American life. That 
the cities will continue to grow may be taken for 
granted, but there is no reason why they should grow 
so largely at the expense of the country and country 
towns. 

A writer, discussing this question a short time 
ago, said that the reason the sons of farmers sought 
the cities was that city life was so much more com- 
plex than life on the farm, and that the whole tend- 
ency of our civilization was toward complexity. 
This may be the philosophy of it, and it is undoubt- 
edly true that our people demand excitement and 
variety. Dullness and monotony are to most of us 
intolerable. So there is a shrinking from the un- 
eventful farm life, and also a longing for the more 
stirring life of the large city. But this is not the 
whole of the question. What the American youth, 
whether he be country or city bred, wants above 
everything else is a career — an opportunity. The 
city offers a thousand chances to one offered by the 
farm. The chance of failure is greater in the city 
than on the farm, when a mere living is considered, 
but so is the chance of success. And Americans were 
ever drawn by risk. They will play for high stakes, 
and they do not as a rule grumble if they lose, pro- 
vided they have had a fair chance to win. 

So the young man wants his career. He considers 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 155 

the case of his father, perhaps, and sees that he has 
worked drudgingly all his life for the most con- 
temptible reward. Long hours, severe and heart- 
breaking toil, anxiety, pinching economy, self-denial 
and sacrifice, and finally old age, with, it may be, 
little to show for it all — what is there in the picture 
that is alluring to the high-spirited young man ? The 
young man loves his home, and if he loves it he re- 
members it with affection, but still he knows that the 
life was narrow, that the hardships were many, and 
that the return was slight. Apparently there is noth- 
ing more in the life for him than there was for his 
father, and so he escapes to the city, where there is 
at least a chance for him to win his spurs. People 
may have theories and write learnedly on this sub- 
ject, but there is no way of keeping the young man 
on the farm if we allow things to remain as they are. 
Our wise, good and honest men may deplore the 
tendency toward the city, but they can not honestly 
quarrel with the young man's choice. Nor can they 
forbid him to make his choice. 

There is only one thing to be done, and that is to 
make farm life more attractive, and equip it with 
good possibilities. We can not exclude men from the 
cities or chain them to the farms, but we can allure, 
attract and keep them to the farms. And this is what 
we propose to do through the American Society of 
Equity. If the farmer's son could feel sure that he 
would get good prices for his products, that he 
would be able to control his own business, that he 



156 THE THIRD POWER 

would not, as now, be neglected by the government, 
be ridiculed by his acquaintances, and that all the 
capacity he possesses and all the education he might 
acquire would find abundant scope for exercise on 
the farm with the certainty of liberal reward, he 
would think long before migrating to the city. Give 
the farmer as many of the comforts of the city as he 
cares to possess, a fair chance at the city's amuse- 
ments, plenty of books and papers and an education 
that would fit him to enjoy them, and he will, with a 
sure chance for a career, be quite content to remain 
a tiller of the soil. But if he is to be a mere drudge, 
a hewer of wood and drawer of water for others, 
we have no right to be surprised that agriculture has 
slight charm for the young man. 

It is admitted that it is a bad thing both for the 
city and the country to have the young men in such 
large numbers leave the latter for the former. The 
professions are crowded ; there are more clerks and 
bookkeepers than are needed, and the farm needs 
laborers more now than ever before, and it is besides 
dangerous when there is a large element of the popu- 
lation living in boarding-houses without any of the 
restraints and safeguards of home. This congestion 
of population is getting worse. And with it the 
chance for the individual is growing slighter all the 
time. Yet all the while there is a clamor for workers 
on the farms. Would the average young man run 
away from a good chance on the farm to a desperate 
struggle in the city with thousands of others perhaps 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 157 

better equipped for it than he is ? This is not likely. 
The farms need the young men, and it is to the inter- 
est of the nation that they should stay on the farm. 
There would be more than enough work for all if 
the conditions were right and if the workers could 
only be assured that it would pay to farm to the 
limit. With larger profits the farmer could afford to 
pay better wages and to grant a shorter working day 
to the men employed by him, and so those toilers who 
are now stranded in the city would be drawn to the 
farm, to the great advantage both of agriculture and 
themselves. 

The possibilities in this direction are very great, 
and they should be attractive. Nothing is more need- 
ed in this country than a redistribution of the popu- 
lation wisely and judiciously made. To secure this 
we must make farming as attractive as it was meant 
to be by God when He created a garden and put a 
man in it to dress it. The poet Cowley writes: 
"God the first garden made, and the first city Cain," 
and Cowper assures us that "God made the country, 
and man made the town." True to his nature man 
has done what he could to spoil the country, God's 
handiwork. It can be, to some extent at least, re- 
stored to its lost estate. And it is fortunate that 
much is already being done to accomplish this. We 
have only to cooperate intelligently with forces al- 
ready at work in order to keep the country from be- 
ing depopulated and the city from being overcrowd- 
ed. In some other countries rural life is popular. 



158 THE THIRD POWER 

It can be made so with us. Indeed, the popular taste 
is already turning in that direction. There is no 
business that demands more brains than agriculture 
if it is properly carried on. But in these days brains 
must be liberally paid. The competition for talent is 
severe, and the farm must be prepared to meet it. 
If there were assurance of adequate reward for 
farming even the present isolation and loneliness and 
other unsatisfactory conditions would not repel. 
Men go to the Klondike and live there simply that 
they may make their fortunes. They will brave any- 
thing for the sake of a chance to make their way in 
the world and to find free scope for the talent they 
feel stirring within them. The frozen north, the 
burning tropics, the islands of the sea, nay, the most 
barbarous and dangerous life — all these call to our 
young men, and they do not call in vain. Yet they 
turn their backs with something like contempt on the 
farm. Is it not strange ? And does not the fact con- 
demn us as a people ? Surely we can do better than 
this. The American Society of Equity offers the 
chance. It would make farming attractive, and 
would again clothe it with the old seductiveness that 
it once had for our people in those days when every 
American citizen wanted to become a landowner. 
A shame it is that that charm has been lost. But it 
need not be lost permanently. Even as it is the life 
has a charm which the shriekers on the floor of the 
stock exchange and in the wheat pit know nothing 
of. For the farmer does produce something, and he 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 159 

at least has the satisfaction of knowing that he is of 
some use in the world. 

The problem, then, is to develop the life on the 
farm up to the full measure of its great possibilities. 
We must make farming a career in the sense that 
other honorable occupations are careers, assure the 
farmer of a fair return for his labor, develop in him 
a pride in his work, make him see that it is worth 
while for him to put into it all the brains he possesses 
and that scientific farming pays, and give him that 
intellectual stimulus which comes from a larger and 
freer life. We must elevate the farmer's business 
until it is on an equality with the best business in the 
country, and when farming as a profession is the best 
profession on earth. When we have done all this, 
when the Third Power at last asserts itself, there will 
be no difficulty in keeping the boys on the farm, and 
other boys will want to come. Is not the experiment 
worth trying ? Do not the farmers see that they owe 
it to their profession, the most ancient and honorable 
of all professions, to exert themselves to the utmost 
to give it that standing in the eyes of the world that 
it ought to have and once did have ? And can not all 
our people be made to understand that anything 
which contributes to the accomplishment of all these 
results is worthy of their cordial and enthusiastic 
support ? There is nothing here suggested that may 
not be done. The question is, Will the farmers do it ? 



CHAPTER XX 

Who, then, 's more entitled to inspire the laws, 
Who'd take more interest in the common cause, 

Than he with good at heart? 
As barnacles on the great ship of state, 
Politicians decrease its fast sailing rate 
And have no cares for its final fate; 

They know no chart. 

It is, of course, quite impossible to consider this 
question apart from politics. Few questions in this 
country can be considered in this detached way. In 
this case it happens that there is a very direct and 
intimate connection between the reform proposed 
and politics — not party politics, but politics in the 
larger and more scientific sense. The air is full of 
talk about political reform. The abuses, injustices 
and oppressions incident to the business of govern- 
ment in this country are dwelt on with much em- 
phasis. All know that corruption abounds on every 
hand, that graft is almost the law of our political life, 
that extravagance is the rule, that favoritism is prev- 
alent, and that those with the strongest "pull" get 
the greatest consideration. There is discrimination 
everywhere, and it is in favor of the strong and 
against the weak. The law itself is too often the 

1 60 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 161 

mere agent of the rich and powerful for carrying out 
their doubtful schemes. 

Why is all this true in a country in which the peo- 
ple are supposed to govern ? None of us can be made 
to believe that the people are corrupt or that they de- 
liberately prefer bad to good government. The peo- 
ple are not corrupt, and so far from preferring bad 
government it is they who chiefly suffer from it. 
The trouble is that the people do not govern. Nom- 
inally a democracy, this government is the«oligarchy 
controlled by a comparatively small class in its own 
interest. The people simply take what is given to 
them. Thus we have turned our system upside 
down and are false to the fundamental law of our 
political being. When a scoundrel in the postoffice de- 
partment is caught with money in his hands that does 
not belong there we all know that it is the people's 
money that he has stolen. When a rascally law is 
enacted taxing the people for the benefit of a few 
greedy and grasping individuals, it is not the people 
who are guilty of the oppression, for it is they that 
are oppressed. Divided into parties, the respectable 
and decent men of our cities are powerless to check- 
mate the rogues who prey on all alike, no matter 
what party they may belong to. The combination 
between men in office and corporations seeking fran- 
chises and favors is a combination in the interest of 
the politicians and the corporations and against the 
interest of the people. The people everywhere suf- 
fer, not because they govern, but because they are 



1 62 THE THIRD POWER 

governed, and really without their consent. Pulls, 
influence, money, party trickery, corporate corrup- 
tion in politics practised by our leading citizens — 
these be our rulers. And to this perversion of our 
government from its true aim and purpose are due 
all the ills from which we suffer. 

And it is only those who make something out of 
government who have any constant and effective in- 
fluence in public affairs. President Hadley, of Yale 
University, writes : 

"Except in those grave crises when a wave of pa- 
triotism sweeps over the community the support on 
which a democratic government relies is spasmodic 
and accidental. No man except the professional 
politician feels that the government is being run in 
his particular interest. On none, therefore, except 
the professional politician can it rely for continuous 
activity in giving effect to its decrees." 

We all understand this perfectly well. Who are 
the men directly and keenly and continuously inter- 
ested in politics if not those who work simply that 
they may get something out of the game ? The men 
who speak in political campaigns are, as a rule, men 
who, if not paid outright for their services, expect 
to get appointments if their side wins. Year after 
year you see the same men hanging around the polls, 
and hoping, through their connection with the or- 
ganization, to be "taken care of." Gradually the 
government has been wrested from the hands of the 
people, and more and more — and as a consequence — 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 163 

the people have lost interest in it and influence 
with it. 

Now the proposition is to restore to the people 
that supremacy which is rightfully theirs, and which 
they must have if this is ever again to be a govern- 
ment of the people. As this is even yet pre-eminently 
an agricultural country, the farmers are the people. 
With the millions of men directly interested in fur- 
thering their own interests, which are those of the 
people, and bound together in an organization, the 
usurpation of the politicians and corporations would 
be broken, and the real rulers would govern. Con- 
sidered in this light the American Society of Equity 
—the Third Power — is an instrument for the resto- 
ration of true democratic government in the United 
States, regardless of name of party. No administra- 
tion would dare to disregard such an influence, or 
would think of tying itself up to the politicians and 
those who now use them. Under such a system noth- 
ing would or could be done without the freely ex- 
pressed will of the people. If they governed them- 
selves badly, they would still govern themselves, and 
would be responsible for all mistakes and crimes. 
With this power and influence the people would re- 
gain their old interest in public affairs, and the 
government would no longer be forced to rely on 
the professional politician "for continuous activity 
in giving effect to its decrees." In a word, it is 
proposed to broaden the base of government and 
to put the power and responsibility in and on the peo- 



1 64 THE THIRD POWER 

pie. Favors enjoyed by all are not favors, but rights. 
A favor is something enjoyed by one at the ex- 
pense of others. If we can secure the granting 
of justice to all and the withdrawal of privileges 
enjoyed only by the few, we shall destroy the 
"pull" and the whole system based on it. So 
this is a movement for democratic government — 
government for all and by all, in which all shall 
participate. With this, secured most of the evils 
from which we are now suffering would disappear. 
The pull would not work when there is nothing to 
be gained by it. The people would not be interested 
in stealing from themselves. If there was nothing 
for corruption to win there would be no corruption. 
In brief, the remedy is to be sought in a simple ad- 
herence to what is the true American system, from 
which we have so widely departed, and in a loyal ad- 
herence to the old American ideals. 

One other point is made by President Hadley that 
bears directly on this discussion. He calls attention 
to the fact that business and politics are now both re- 
garded as games, and he says : 

"A wider discretionary power for good or ill is 
placed in the hands of those by whom the public 
affairs of the city or state are conducted. These 
affairs will not be safe while politics is regarded as a 
game. * * * Under an imperialistic policy our 
government can not remain what it is. It must 
grow either worse or better. It can not remain a 
game in which the struggle for success is as far as 
possible disassociated from the moral sense of the 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 165 

participants. It will involve either a direct breach of 
trust or a direct acceptance of trust." 

How widely this "game" theory of politics is held 
we all know, or if we do not we can easily learn by 
a few minutes' talk with a ward worker. Perhaps 
we ourselves have held to the theory. However this 
may be, the theory is wholly pernicious. For what is 
a "game" except something at which some one must 
win and some other one lose ? It is the risk of los- 
ing, the hazard, that gives the game all its charm. 
There would be no betting on horse races if it were 
positively certain that every one would win. If suc- 
cess were sure for all, our gambling laws would en- 
force themselves — for there would be no gambling. 
What, therefore, are we to think of a political system 
administered by, or in the name of, a free people, 
which is avowedly based on the theory that some of 
the people must win at the expense of others of the 
people ? Yet that is the present situation. It should 
be ended. An honest government is one under which 
every citizen, even the humblest, would win — that is, 
it is not a game. It is a business, and a business con- 
ducted for the benefit of all. And that is the sort of 
government that is advocated by the American So- 
ciety of Equity. Politicians do not struggle, and 
plot, and bribe in order that they may secure justice 
and equity ; what they seek is privilege. They play 
the game, and they play it for rich stakes. So it is 
proposed to uproot this game theory, for, as Presi- 
dent Hadley truthfully says, our "affairs will not be 



166 THE THIRD POWER 

safe while politics is regarded as a game." If we 
make it impossible, as we intend to do, for one man 
to win at the expense of another, we shall end the 
game business and destroy the interest in politics 
now shown by men who ought to be banished from 
politics. With the people in power, and with the 
government, which is now a great gambling affair, 
turned into an honorable business enterprise, corrup- 
tion, bribery and extravagance will disappear, and 
elections, instead of being fierce and degrading strug- 
gles for spoil, will be, as they ought to be, sober 
consultations regarding questions of principle and 
policy in which all will have a legitimate interest. 



CHAPTER XXI 

While some may think him quite enchanting, 
Heed not the politician's senseless ranting; 

Down with his throne ! 
In your sturdy ranks are statesmen true 
Who'd see that you received what's justly due. 
Bring them forward, as you surely should do — 

Have rulers of your own ! 

Much is said about the dangers of a strong gov- 
ernment. But surely no one will deny that the gov- 
ernment ought, at least, to be stronger than any 
citizen or combination of citizens. The power of all 
must be stronger than the power of less than all. 
Otherwise we shall have the rule of the many by the 
few, which is abhorrent to American ideas. So we 
shall have a government strong enough to prevent 
one man from injuring another. And it will make 
no difference how rich and powerful the would-be 
injurer is. In no other way than this can justice and 
equity be secured. The government must first itself 
be just, and then it must, standing above and outside 
of all classes and cliques, impose absolute justice 
upon all. We all know that weak governments can 
not do this. A feeble ruler is always, and of necessity 
must be, an unjust and oppressive ruler. In order 

167 



1 68 THE THIRD POWER 

to maintain himself he is forced to seek the support 
of the rich and powerful or of certain classes of the 
rich and powerful, and to win their support he must 
favor them at the expense of the rest of the commu- 
nity. A study of the history of the South and Cen- 
tral American republics will show that this is true. 
To be just, a government must be great and strong, 
owing no favors to any one, and granting none to 
any one. 

To this extent, then, we intend to have a strong 
government in this country. Putting the case in the 
other way, surely no one will say that it should be 
less strong than even the most powerful citizen, or 
combination of citizens. We want all the people — 
and not some of the people — to rule all the people. 
And this, and this only, is self-government. We may 
then start with the certainty that the success of the 
American Society of Equity and the triumph of the 
Third Power will mark the end of class rule and of 
the favoritism that has grown out of it. Thus we 
shall have justice and the destruction of all motives 
that lead men in power to be guilty of injustice. 
Surely that will be a great gain. Of course it would 
be foolish to attempt to say what such a government 
might do, for it could do whatever it pleased to do. 
What it pleased to do would depend wholly on the 
will of the people. It is conceivable that the new 
system might develop along socialistic lines, and that 
the central authority might interfere more than it 
does now with what we call private business. Yet 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 169 

there is no tendency to the confiscation of property 
nor anything that will check enterprise, nor limit 
ambition or kill incentive to efforts. But if two 
classes of citizens got into a controversy causing in- 
convenience and loss to the whole community, it is 
very probable that all the people, acting through 
their government, would intervene to protect them- 
selves and to end the quarrel. The Interstate Corri- 
merce Commission even now may say that a certain 
railroad rate is unreasonable, though it may not fix 
a reasonable rate. Under the new order the nation 
might do the latter thing — and it would be no very 
great extension of power. If it were found that the 
butchers were charging prices for meat out of all 
proportion to the cost of the cattle that they bought 
— as they have been known to do — the government, 
in the interest of all, would almost certainly order 
the price to be reduced. The coal strike of 1902-3 
could have been ended before the evil effects of it 
were felt outside of the neighborhood where it start- 
ed ; and who will claim that immeasurable suffering, 
inconvenience and financial loss all over the country 
should be endured just because a few miners and 
operators disagree? If a government is not for this 
purpose, pray, what is it for? In the controversy, 
which it has been suggested might arise between the 
farmers and the consumers as to the price of farm 
products, the government would impose its just will 
on both parties to the quarrel and see that a fair and 
reasonable price was established. In a word, it would 



i;o THE THIRD POWER 

instantly ally itself with all the people as against any 
class that was seeking to win for itself an unfair ad- 
vantage at the expense of society. As it is now it 
allies itself with a given class against the whole body 
of the people. Thus that situation would be entirely 
reversed. 

But, it will be asked, could such a government be 
trusted? Certainly it could be if the people can be 
trusted to govern themselves, as we all pretend to 
believe. And when we say that we believe in the 
principle of self-government we do not mean that 
we think that the people are infallible, and so incapa- 
ble of making mistakes. What we do mean is that 
the people are honest, intelligent, swayed by good 
purposes, and are much better fit to govern them- 
selves than any man is to govern them. We mean 
further that they will be much more patient under 
their own mistakes than they could be under the mis- 
takes of any one else. They would recognize that 
the hurt came from themselves, so as there would be 
no one to punish there would be no basis for discon- 
tent or revolution. 

It would, to be sure, still be necessary to decide 
questions of policy by a majority vote, and the dan- 
ger of a tyranny by majority would not be wholly 
removed ; but it would be greatly lessened. For we 
should have in government something of that co- 
operation which it is designed to introduce in the 
business of production. The government would be 
more directly by the people and less by the delegated 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 171 

agents than is now the case. And the overwhelming 
preponderance of the farmers would strengthen and 
broaden the foundation of government and would 
give many more people an interest in it. 

Thus the American Society of Equity, merely by 
calling attention very sharply to the grievances of 
the farmers, who constitute the largest class in the 
country, and without having anything directly to do 
with politics, may be expected to transform our 
government by restoring it to its first and highest 
estate. 

What does it matter if mistakes are made? They 
are made now. The people are quite as wise as the 
politicians and ringsters who now Bear rule. And 
surely the politicians ought to be willing to admit 
that people wise enough to put them in power are 
very wise indeed. To hear the defenders of the pres- 
ent system talk you would think that presidents and 
congresses were never corrupt or wicked or incom- 
petent or foolish. They compare the new scheme 
with an ideal system, and because it does not meas- 
ure up to it they condemn it, forgetting that neither 
does the old system measure up to the ideal. Yet it 
must ever be borne in mind that we do not advocate 
any new system — no patent device or trick. What is 
advocated is old enough, namely, a government 
which shall be controlled by the people and not by 
the agents and servants of the people — a strong gov- 
ernment, that will protect its citizens and afford that 
protection quickly — an equitable government, that 



172 THE THIRD POWER 

secures justice for all. This is the true American 
theory from which, however, we have widely de- 
parted. 

One thing which it is desired to secure is new in 
human governments, and that is justice. If that can 
be gained all will have been gained. Is it beyond 
our reach? For ages men have longed for it and 
struggled for it, but it has always gleamed just 
ahead of them, and they have never been able to 
reach it. Is it now at hand? Not ideally or in its 
fulness, perhaps, for this is an imperfect world of 
imperfect men, and selfishness is hard to kill. But 
substantially it can be secured. It can be secured, 
but only in one way — by enlisting selfishness (self- 
interest) in the struggle for it. If we can make a 
large majority of men see that it pays to be just, 
that they can not have justice themselves unless they 
are prepared to concede it to others, they will be as 
zealous fighters against injustice as are the most un- 
selfish and idealistic of people. Men have in the past 
tried to eliminate selfishness. Now the purpose is 
to use it on the side of righteousness. The appeal 
must be made to the intelligence and self-interest of 
men as well as to their conscience. It ought not to 
be difficult to make sensible men understand that 
they would win more by freely yielding to every 
other man his rights than they could ever hope to 
win in a fierce scramble for unfair advantages in 
which they are as likely to be hurt as they are to hurt 
their brother. The farmer's cause will not be pro- 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 173 

moted — the Third Power will not rise — on the ruin 
of other enterprises, but by building up alongside 
of them will strengthen every other legitimate busi- 
ness and institution. 

A great, economic writer has given us an allegory 
showing the wastefulness of a foolish and unen- 
lightened selfishness. He once saw a cage of mon- 
keys being fed. A plate full of food was placed be- 
fore each monkey, but each one of them, instead of 
eating from the plate before him, wildly grabbed for 
the portion of his neighbor. And in the scramble 
much of the food was lost. What is suggested here 
is that each man should eat off his own plate and 
leave his neighbor to consume his meal in peace. 
Thus all would get enough, and the decencies would 
be maintained. Society at the present time is very 
like the cage of monkeys. In both cases there is 
selfishness, but it is of the silly kind. Surely we can 
order things better. If we can not, we might as well 
confess that self-government is a failure, nay, that 
men are not fit to live together in organized society. 



CHAPTER XXII 

Then come along ! Come along ! Make no delay ; 

Come from every dwelling, come from every way; 

Let Equity be in your hearts, and on your banners gay, 

Then right and justice will prevail and dwell with us alway. 

Such is the argument in favor of the proposed so- 
ciety. For further details as to methods of organi- 
zation, and rules for government of the society, I 
refer to the appendix in which the constitution, by- 
laws, regulations and other details are set forth ex- 
plicitly. And these have to do directly with another 
exceedingly important question. Some farmers may 
say that such a combination would be very desirable, 
that It would accomplish all the things I have said it 
would accomplish, and that in every way it would be 
a good thing for the farmers and the people. But 
they may ask : Is the plan practicable ? This is the 
great question which reformers always have to an- 
swer, and, of course, it is right that they should be 
required to answer it, for it is to the test of practica- 
bility that everything must be brought. A flying 
machine would be most useful — if it would work. 
But unless a device of this sort will work there is no 
sense in paying any attention to it. Always there is 

174 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 175 

this terrible test. Can the American Society of 
Equity stand it ? 

I have not, in what has been said, passed over this 
question. For it has been shown that organization 
is the law of industrial progress; that other indus- 
tries are organized ; that all the forces of our civili- 
zation are tending toward a closer unity among men ; 
that the farmers have combined successfully already 
(witness the Grange, Alliance, Farmers' Mutual As- 
sociation and others), and that every change for the 
better that has taken place in the farmer's condition 
— his greater intelligence, his growing sense of de- 
pendence on others in the same line, his closer asso- 
ciation with others through the medium of frequent 
mails, telephones, trolley lines, the growth of cities 
and towns in the rural regions, and his greater use of 
machinery — all points the way to organization, and 
makes it necessary, easy and inevitable. The Ameri- 
can Society of Equity is thus working along natural 
lines and in cooperation with natural forces. So the 
argument in favor of the possibilities of organizing 
by this plan is reasonably strong as it now stands. 
As to its practicability and durability, these depend 
on the benefits it gives. But a little closer and more 
detailed examination of it may serve to allay the 
doubts of the more timorous and conservative. Of 
course, the great objection is that the scheme is too 
large and involves too many men. Organization, it 
is said, is easy when only a few people are concerned, 
but it is exceedingly difficult when it becomes neces- 



176 THE THIRD POWER 

sary to take in millions of people, living in widely- 
separated sections of the country, but this objection 
is based, not on the impracticability of the plan, but 
on the difficulty without conceding its impossibility. 
It will undoubtedly be harder to organize the farm- 
ers in such a way as to secure united action from 
them than it is for two men in the same city to form 
a commercial partnership ; but the one is no more im- 
possible than the other. 

Surely the farmers in a certain neighborhood can 
organize without much trouble, and they can agree 
to abide by certain rules. They have done so and are 
doing this every day. So of the farmers in another 
and adjoining sections. Thus far the case is plain 
enough. If, therefore, the farmers in any given 
county have organized in the American Society of 
Equity — and they have in many — does it not follow 
that they can organize in other counties until a state 
is organized. If one state can organize an- 
other can. In fact, all the states can. If the 
farmers in the United States can organize (and 
they have more than once, but on very poor 
plans), the farmers in Canada can organize, where 
the needs are as urgent and the conditions are very 
similar. Now if the farmers in America can organ- 
ize on this new plan of the American Society of 
Equity, and for the beautiful and meritorious ob- 
jects for which it stands, does it not follow that the 
farmers of Europe can organize, particularly since 
they need organization even more? I do not admit 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 177 

the necessity of organizing the farmers of Europe 
to accomplish all the objects of the American Society 
of Equity in this country, but organization there will 
follow. It will be a spontaneous lifting up or fol- 
lowing in the lead of the American farmers until 
they are on the same level. There is not a step 
in the process which may not be easily taken. In- 
deed, the work has already been begun and is now 
going forward with great rapidity. It would not be 
too much to say that the organization has already 
been effected. The problem is not one of the crea- 
tion, but of the extension of the organization. That 
the organization can be formed has already been 
demonstrated. But there is another question which 
may give trouble to some people, and that is, Will 
the organization work ? Unless there is good reason 
to believe that it will not, we are almost justified in 
asserting, even in the absence of affirmative proof, 
that it will, since the presumption is so strongly in 
its favor. At any rate we may say that the only way 
to find out positively whether or not it will work, 
unless it can be absolutely demonstrated that it will 
not work, is to try it. The man who builds a flying 
machine does not hesitate to put it to the test. Many 
men were sure that no ship could ever cross the 
ocean under steam. Yet when the trial was made 
it was found that the doubter was mistaken. So it is 
here. There is, as I believe, a great, new machine. 
That it can be built has already been proved. Now 
we want to know whether it will operate. The ma- 



178 THE THIRD POWER 

chine is being built for benefits. We will leave you 
to judge if the plan as explained does not provide 
for every needed timber, all the wheels, levers and 
cranks ; is there a nut, screw, bolt, rivet or nail lack- 
ing ? Don't it look that all that is needed is the co- 
operative help of one million American freemen to 
man it, when it will start and continue forever to 
supply the needs of the entire agricultural needs of 
this greatest of countries ? In order to be sure either 
that it will or will not work we must give it a trial. 

We have seen what it would accomplish, assuming 
that it will work. Are not these objects worth tak- 
ing some risk — especially when the risk is so slight 
to secure? If the machine breaks down the loss 
to each individual will be inappreciable ; if it moves, 
his gain will be tremendous. You risk infinitely 
more on every crop you put out or every head of 
live stock you put in the stall, not knowing whether 
you will get your money back or not. If the ma- 
chine works, it will insure you a liberal return for 
every dollar invested, or every hour employed in all 
future time. But why should it not work? It all 
depends on the farmers. If they come into the or- 
ganization, are loyal to its rules, are true to one an- 
other, and cooperate faithfully and intelligently for 
the general good, there can be no possible doubt of 
the success of the plan. No, I will not expect this. 
All do not need to be loyal, considering the great 
number of farmers, and the fact that only a small 
portion of any crop needs to be controlled at any 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 179 

time. If we admit that the great majority of farm- 
ers are stubborn, in fact rebellious, yet they can not 
affect the accurate working results of this machine. 
There will still be enough loyal ones left at any time 
to insure success. In this respect the great num- 
bers of farmers which, in the past, was considered 
the great element of weakness in a farmers' organ- 
ization will be its greatest strength, when working 
on the plan of the American Society of Equity. 
Give us a number equal to what were in some for- 
mer farmers' organizations and the definite results 
will work out almost without an effort on the part 
of the individual farmer. Farmers should remem- 
ber that they are not to be ruled from the outside. 
When the voice of the American Society of Equity 
is heard, it will be the voice of the farmers them- 
selves. 

So what we are to learn is not whether the organ- 
ization can succeed, but whether the American farm- 
ers honestly want it to succeed; therefore, to doubt 
the practicability of the plan is to doubt the farmers 
themselves ; after the organization has been effected 
the farmers can kill it if they wish to, but so can a 
man rob his partner. Railroads combine success- 
fully, and yet how often do we hear of secret cut- 
ting of rates in direct violation of the agreement 
between the roads. So I admit that some of the 
farmers might play the traitor to the organization, 
and yet I hold that the organization would win in 
spite of their treachery. But there would be few 



180 THE THIRD POWER 

such men among the American farmers ; having once 
decided to give the American Society of Equity a 
trial they would see to it that it had a fair trial. 

The only people incapable of working together in 
organizations are savages, idiots and the insane. 
Among these a perverse individualism prevails. Are 
we to class the farmers in either of these categories? 
Organization is the great weapon of civilized and 
enlightened men, and so it is peculiarly the weapon 
of the American farmer. In his "Notes on Vir- 
ginia," Thomas Jefferson wrote: 

"Those who labor in the earth are the chosen peo- 
ple of God, if He ever had a chosen people, whose 
breasts He has made His peculiar deposit for sub- 
stantial and genuine virtue. It is the focus in which 
He keeps alive that sacred fire, which otherwise 
might escape from the earth. Corruption of morals 
in the mass of cultivators is a phenomenon of which 
no age or nation has furnished an example." 

And writing to John Jay, in 1785, Jefferson said: 

"Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable 
citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most in- 
dependent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to 
their country and wedded to its liberty by the most 
lasting bonds." 

What they were in Jefferson's day they are now. 
Yet it is of such men that we are asked to believe 
that they, like the insane and savage, are incapable 
of organization. The farmers are as intelligent as 
the mechanics, who combine without difficulty and 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 181 

make their combinations effective. They are even 
as intelligent as the so-called captains of industry, 
who, through their organizations, control both the 
business and the politics of the American people. 
What the mechanics and capitalists do, the farmers 
can and will do. To say that they can not organize 
effectively is to put them in a class by themselves 
and to rank them infinitely below all other classes. 
And that is absurd. 

One objection remains to be considered: There 
are those who say that the scheme is too great — that 
it is beyond the power of men to achieve. This is 
but another way of stating an objection already 
considered. But what are men put in this world for, 
if not to achieve great things ? The very greatness 
of this enterprise, instead of being an objection to 
it, ought to be one of its chief recommendations. 
Further, if it has been shown that it is practicable, 
what matters it how great it is? The greater the 
better, one would think; besides, system is the serv- 
ant of the twentieth century business man, and great 
enterprises frequently work out more definitely than 
small ones. It is a stupendous campaign in which 
the farmers are asked to enlist. But that very fact 
ought to stir their ambition and inflame their zeal. 
Instead of saying that the plan can not be put in op- 
eration, we ought to set ourselves to a considera- 
tion of those qualities that are necessary in those 
who would make it work. Ralph Waldo Emerson — 
an American prophet who was never staggered by 



182 THE THIRD POWER 

the great or impossible — has said that "nothing 
great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." It is 
so. Therefore, our duty is, not to pick flaws in the 
proposed scheme ; not to make up our minds before- 
hand that it can not win, but to kindle our enthusi- 
asm to such a point as to make failure absolutely 
impossible. The cause is worthy; the weapon is at 
hand and effective; the only weakness, if there is 
weakness, is our own doubting spirit. The appeal is 
for men to fight in the cause and to wield the 
weapon. With them — and they will be had — the 
Machine of Cooperation will be built. The Third 
Power will be a real power; the grand American 
Society of Equity will be a triumphant success, and 
agriculture will be lifted to the plane where it right- 
fully belongs. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

Away with special privilege, 

Away with greed of gain, 
Away with cunning schemes of men 

That equal rights restrain. 
When Toil goes forth amid the fields, 

Its fruits mankind to bless, 
Let Toil say what those fruits are worth, 

Let Toil its own possess. 

The plan outlined ought to appeal to European 
farmers quite as much as to their American breth- 
ren. With the cheap land in America, and bound- 
less quantities of it, and by the large use of ma- 
chinery, the farmers of the United States have 
forced the price of European wheat, and farm prod- 
ucts generally, to an extremely low price. So all 
the farmers, and not merely those in the United 
States, have suffered from low prices and inade- 
quately rewarded labor. This American invasion 
has not been a good thing for any of the farmers. 
For they have been engaged in a competition that 
was hurtful to all. Of course the farmers of Europe 
can not possibly raise prices as long as they are sub- 
jected to the competition of American products at 
the present low prices. The thing to do is, mani- 
festly, to combine to raise prices. Restrictive legis- 

183 



184 THE THIRD POWER 

lation will accomplish little. In resorting to this, 
there is, too, the further danger of raising prices so 
high that people can not or will not buy. The farm- 
ers can check the present competition by combination 
more easily, and more effectively, than governments 
can kill it by law. 

And the key to the situation is in the hands of the 
Americans. If they will refuse to compete with 
Europeans on the present basis, and will combine 
with them to lift the price of farm products all over 
the world, it is clear that, though competition will 
not be destroyed, it will be put on such a basis as to 
make it possible for all to profit. Every advance of 
price here, provided it be firmly held, will raise the 
price of the competing product abroad. 

A combination among American farmers even 
without help from abroad would have that effect. 
It would establish a level below which the European 
farmers would not need to go in competing with one 
another. But with all the farmers in the combina- 
tion the effect would be much more marked. 

It seems strange that the European farmers 
should look for salvation to their most dreaded 
competitors, but it is from these latter that salvation 
must come. For they have found that in beating 
their European rivals they have also injured them- 
selves. Now they propose to take themselves out 
of the unprofitable struggle for cheapness. And 
until they do withdraw from that struggle there 
will be no hope for any one. So this chance is of- 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 185 

fered to the farmers of Canada, France, Austria- 
Hungary, Russia, the Argentine, far-off India, and, 
in short, the world where food for man and beast are 
grown, in the confident expectation that they will 
eagerly embrace it. The arguments that prove that 
organization will be a good thing for the American 
farmers prove, also, that it will be a good thing for 
the farmers everywhere. For the same conditions 
that operate against the former operate against the 
latter, and there is the additional element of Amer- 
ican competition. 

Let it be distinctly understood that the organiza- 
tion proposed is industrial rather than political. For 
nations differ in their forms of government and in 
their political institutions, and a political program 
that would work well in one country might not work 
at all in another. Production, however, is the same 
the world over. Everywhere it depends on the three 
factors, land, labor, and capital, and the problem is 
the same everywhere, namely, to secure a fair reward 
to all three. There is no reason why the Third 
Power should not operate as effectively and benefi- 
cently in Russia as in the United States, in India as 
in the Argentine. The farmers in all these coun- 
tries are interested in checking speculation, in pre- 
venting the speculators from playing off the prod- 
ucts of one against the other, and in securing fair 
prices for what they raise. In a word, their interests 
are identical. Therefore, all can easily cooperate. 

The farmers of other countries need the society 



1 86 THE THIRD POWER 

even worse than those of the United States do. 
They have smaller farms and they work dearer land 
— and land that is more in need of constant renew- 
ing and fertilizing. They need to make even a 
higher interest on their investment than is necessary 
in this country, in order to be sure of a decent living. 
When they come in competition with American 
wheat, grown on large farms and on land that is yet 
cheap, they are at a serious disadvantage. There is 
not a farmer in Russia who does not know that it 
would be easier for him to compete with American 
wheat at a dollar than with American wheat at fifty, 
sixty or seventy cents. And if the Russian buyer 
were unable to get wheat from abroad at a lower 
price than that established by the Russian farmers, 
he would be compelled to take Russian wheat. Nor 
are the American farmers at all disturbed at the 
prospect of all farmers getting good prices for their 
products. They know that there is a demand for 
all the staple crops that is ever likely to be raised — 
that the market is big enough for all. The trouble 
is that the crop of one country is used to depress the 
price of the crops of other countries, and thus all 
have suffered. 

It is this well-known fact that makes interna- 
tional cooperation desirable, and to make the bene- 
fits of the society world wide. Buyers operate on an 
international basis. Sellers must, if they would 
protect themselves against imposition, do the same 
thing. Thus business, and not politics, is the object 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 187 

of the organization. The question is not whether a 
man is a Republican or a Democrat, a Liberal or a 
Conservative, a supporter or an opponent of the gov- 
ernment, but simply and solely whether he wants 
to end the bad, uncertain and unprofitable system of 
the past. Elevate his business on a plane with the 
best of others, and make the best possible man out 
of himself. It is from this point of view that rulers 
and people alike are asked to consider this plan. 
The combination is one of the world's producers 
for their own, and so for the world's good. It is 
proposed to antagonize nothing except unfair com- 
mercial and industrial conditions. And when it is 
known that those conditions operate to injure by 
far the largest class of people in the world, surely 
no one can object to having them removed. 

So the organization will be, and indeed has been, 
extended to other countries than the United States. 
The Russian farmers are roused, and are moving 
in the same path which the American farmers are 
asked to tread. Societies similar to the American 
Society of Equity will soon be organized in the 
Czar's dominions and other countries. The in- 
terest is intense wherever the plan has been devel- 
oped. No man to whom it has been explained has 
failed to be convinced. Its simplicity, and, at the 
same time, its wide scope, its effectiveness, its justice 
and its equity, have all served to commend it to rea- 
sonable men. Whether a man lives in Russia or In- 
dia, the United States, or elsewhere, he wants at 



188 THE THIRD POWER 

least a fair chance to make his living and care prop- 
erly for his family. On this platform all can stand. 
It is the platform of the American Society of 
Equity. And this is the reason why it is so well 
adapted to act internationally. The invitation, 
therefore, is as broad as humanity. The call goes 
to all, and from all. For their own good a favora- 
ble response is earnestly desired. It comes from 
men who are firmly determined to control their own 
business in their own interest, and to quit paying 
unfair toll to the speculators and middlemen who 
so long preyed on the productive industries of the 
world. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

Let justice reign o'er our mighty band; 

Let our hearts with triumph fill ; 
Let all awake, ere 'tis too late. 

And every foe we'll still. 
In unity we'll conquer all — 

Oh, may the day be near 
When with God and right we will reign as might, 

With conscience bright and clear ! 

Oh, why should we, to whom life depends, 

Be trampled in the dust? 
While others gain, we writhe in pain, 

For want of right and just. 
If one and all would for duty strive, 

Then sorrow soon would end; 
We supreme would reign and our rights we'd gain — 

On no one we'd depend. 

As a final word, it seems to be necessary to urge 
the thought that success would not involve the en- 
slavement or control of any one class, but the free- 
dom of all the people. It has been said that the 
struggle to which the farmer is invited is one for 
emancipation. What is sought is as little govern- 
ment regulation as possible, and the widest possible 
opportunity for each one to work out his own des- 
tiny. The removal of obstacles rather than the im- 
position of new restrictions is the end sought. 

189 



190 THE THIRD POWER 

Undoubtedly men who prey on others must be re- 
strained, but even this restraint will be in the inter- 
est of general liberty. That man is not free who 
does not get a fair reward for his own toil undimin- 
ished by tax for the benefit of his fellow citizens. So 
the vice of our present system is, that it is not based 
on liberty. And the farmers are those from whom 
liberty is withheld. So it all comes to a question of 
freedom. In doing away with the present abuses 
we are attacking not simply commercial and indus- 
trial unfairness and oppression, but tyranny. It is 
not insisted that any man shall have less than he is 
entitled to, but that all men shall have all that they 
are entitled to. Liberty, then, is the great aim of 
the American Society of Equity. 

And there can be no real justice where there is 
not liberty. For justice is, by its very nature, some- 
thing that is due to a man; a debt owing to him; 
something to which he is entitled. When it is given 
or conceded to him as a favor or privilege coming 
from a benevolent despot, it is not really justice at 
all. Justice is not a thing to be granted, but one to 
be demanded. So when the American people came 
to frame their new and free government under the 
constitution they declared that one of their purposes 
was to "establish justice." They knew that a gov- 
ernment could not be free unless it was just, or just 
unless it was free. And they were right. Surely this 
is a good precedent — one to which every American 
citizen should bow in reverence. But the appeal is 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 191 

not to one people, but to all people. The greatest 
merit of the plan is that it does not antagonize any 
government. It seeks the cooperation of all govern- 
ments, which, no matter what their form, are with- 
out exception based on the idea that the good and 
prosperity of the subject or the citizen must be their 
chief consideration. 

If the rulers of the earth believe this, and they all 
profess to do so, they will find a valuable and useful 
ally in the American Society of Equity. All that is 
asked is that the men who feed the world should 
themselves be decently fed. Even in the most abso- 
lute monarchies it is of the first importance that the 
people should be happy, contented and prosperous. 
And that government is wise which exerts itself to 
the utmost to secure that result. When this can be 
achieved without cost or peril to the government, it 
would seem as though no objection could be raised 
even by the most absolute ruler to any plan that ap- 
peared likely to bring the result to pass. Kingdoms 
have been known to go to war for the sake of divert- 
ing the attention of the people away from ill condi- 
tions at home. There have, in the history of the race, 
been many wars prompted by this motive. But such 
relief is only temporary. For after the war is over 
we find that the same evils exist, and that the burden 
of taxation imposed by the war only makes them 
worse and increases the discontent of the people. So, 
at most, war undertaken for this purpose is a mere 
palliative. What is wanted is a permanent remedy. 



192 THE THIRD POWER 

And the true remedy is one which is not only con- 
sistent with peace, but one which demands peace. 
The late Lord Tennyson wrote of his vision of what 
the earth was one day to be : 

"Robed in universal harvest, up to either pole she smiles, 
Universal ocean softh r washing all her warless isles." 

That is the ideal. Abundance for all, general 
content, the greatest productiveness, justice, honest 
pay for honest toil, and universal peace — these are 
the things that the American Society of Equity 
would have the world enjoy. To keep the people 
happy is better than going to war to make them for- 
get their unhappiness. It is in this direction that 
we must look for federation, not of Europe against 
America, not of one class against another, not of 
the people against their government — but of all 
people, of all the nations for the general good. It is 
through such industrial and commercial alliance that 
political alliances must come. The Russian, the 
American, the Argentine, the Indian and all other 
farmers ought to be friends, not enemies. They 
will be friends when relieved from the spell of the 
speculators and gamblers in farm products, the mar- 
ket manipulators and false crop reporters. And 
when they are friends their governments will be 
friends. 

So this society is not American except as it is 
domiciled in America. It is world-wide, and there 
is not a toiler in the world who will not be benefited 



FARMERS TO THE FRONT 193 

by it. What has been said to, and of, American 
farmers applies to all farmers, and this organiza- 
tion is meant for all farmers. It all comes to the 
scriptural doctrine that the laborer is worthy of his 
hire. To withhold his hire from him, or any part 
of it, is to weaken all government and to impair the 
foundations on which society must rest. While to 
insure him his just reward is to strengthen the so- 
cial order and to build anew the foundations of the 
political structures of the world. 

Years before it came to pass, Arthur Young, trav- 
eling in France, predicted the great revolution that 
took place in that country more than a hundred 
years ago. He based his prophecy simply on the 
fact that the people were being robbed by the church 
and the nobility, and robbed to such an extent that 
they did not have enough left to live on. We are 
wiser in our generation, in that we do not push our 
spoliation to such an extreme point. But we want, 
not simply to avoid revolution, but to make all the 
people happy. The question is, not how much we can 
safely take from them, but how much we can give 
them. And when we are asked to give them only 
what is already theirs, in equity, with the assurance 
that by doing so we shall make them happy, shall 
we hesitate? 

Peace, happiness, truth, justice, order, the death 
of anarchy, firmly established governments, the 
reign of law, contentment and satisfaction, together 
with real and widely diffused prosperity, and to 



i 9 4 THE THIRD POWER 

crown it all a real federation of the nations — surely 
these are things worth striving for. St. Paul said : 
"Who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the 
fruit thereof? Or who feedeth a flock/ and eateth 
not of the milk of the flock?" And the Psalmist 
wrote to his people in their captivity: "For thou 
shalt eat the labors of thine hands; O well is thee 
and happy shalt thou be." We seek the fulfillment 
of these prophecies. There is not a human being in 
the world, and not a government in the world that 
will not be better because of the triumph of the 
Third Power through the American Society of 
Equity. 



SECOND PART 



195 



INTERNATIONAL CONSOLIDATION 
OF AGRICULTURAL INTERESTS 
AND THE AMERICAN FARMER. 

By Eugene Matrosow, D. C. L. 

While the terrible agricultural depression of 1893-1897 is 
fresh as yet in the memory of the American people, opinions 
widely differ as to the present state of American agriculture. 
Though, by some people, the general agricultural condition of 
the United States is considered as not only satisfactory but 
even indicative of increased prosperity, there are many con- 
servative and well-informed persons concurring in the opinion 
that American agriculture is still in the state of depression, 
although, of course, not in such a terrible degree as it was 
several years ago. 

It is very remarkable indeed that in all these discussions of 
the general condition of farming throughout the United States 
an accurate analysis of the farmer's income was not under- 
taken. Meanwhile, in order to grasp the true condition of the 
American farmer of to-day, his income must be properly 
analyzed. We must go to the bottom and present the facts 
in their true significance. 

Reports of Twelfth Census of the United States, published 
last year, contain no information as to the number of persons 
to a farm. Thus, we have to find out this number for our- 
selves. According to the Reports on Population, rural popu- 
lation of the United States in 1900 was 39,528,398 (vol. I, p. 
LXXXIX). The number of farms reported by the division of 
agriculture, 5,739,657 (vol. V, p. LXIX), is 0.7 per cent, greater 
than the number of farm families reported by the division of 
population, 5.700,341 (vol. II, p. CLXXXVIII). This varia- 
tion is explained in the reports as being unquestionably the re- 
sult of incomplete agricultural reports, mainly among the 

197 



198 THE THIRD POWER 

Indian farmers. The population figures, therefore, according 
to the said explanation of census officials, more fully express 
the facts of the case, so far as the number of farms and of farm 
families are concerned, than those of the division of agri- 
culture (vol. II, p. CCIII and vol. V, p. LXIII). So, divid- 
ing rural population in 1900 (39,528,398), by total number of 
farms as reported by the division of population (5,700,341), 
we find that the number of persons to a farm in 1900 was 6.9. 
It is necessary to bear in mind in this connection that num- 
ber of persons to a farm is not identical either with number of 
persons to a dwelling, 5.3 (vol. II, p. CLVII), or with num- 
ber of persons to a family, 4.7 (vol. II, p. CLVIII). 

Total value of farm products of 1899 was $4,739,118,752. 
Average value per farm: Total, $826. Fed to live stock, 
$170. Not fed to live stock, $656. Average expenditure per 
farm: Labor, $64. Fertilizers, $10. 

(Abstract of the Twelfth Census, pp. 234-237.) 
According to this estimate the annual income from the aver- 
age farm in 1899 was $582 ($656 — $74). As the results of 
the last census show quite clearly, there were in the United 
States in 1900, 4,410,877 agricultural laborers in strict mean- 
ing of the word, i. e., of so-called hired help, (Abstract of the 
Twelfth Census, p. 24), for 5,700,341 farms or 0.77 of hired 
man per farm. If we allow 5.9 persons to each farm for 
1899 (what was the case in 1900), deduct 0.77 of hired agri- 
cultural laborer per farm from 6.9 persons to each farm, and 
divide this $582 among them equally, we receive for the farm- 
ers of the United States an average annual per capita income 
of $94.9 ($582 divided by 6.13). If we again divide this amount 
by the number of days in the year we receive for those, who 
have to depend on the farm for their living, an average per 
capita income of 26 cents per day ($94.9 divided by 365). 
There are farm owners, part owners, cash tenants and share 
tenants, while agricultural laborers in the strict meaning of 
this word, which are just 0.77 per farm, receive an average 
annual per capita, $83 ($64 divided by 0.77), and average per 
capita income of 22.7 cents per day. Thus, it becomes ap- 
parent beyond any dispute, that an average daily per capita 
income of agricultural laborer of the United States is just 



INTERNATIONAL CONSOLIDATION 199 

3.3 cents per day less than an average daily per capita share 
of the American farmer and members of his family in the 
total product, to say nothing of their daily net profit. 

It must be remembered that this $582 or 26 cents per day 
per capita is not the profit made from the average farm or 
day's labor, but constitutes the value of the entire annual pro- 
duction of the farm, just the portion of the product fed to 
live stock and expenditure for hired labor and fertilizers hav- 
ing been deducted therefrom. It includes that portion con- 
sumed on the farm, as well as that portion sold. Out of this 
amount the farmer must pay his taxes, insurance, interest, 
the cost of seed, wear and tear of farm implements and re- 
pairing of fences and buildings. All these items must be paid 
out of the $582, before the farmer can have anything for him- 
self and his family. The question then is, how much will the 
average farmer and his family have for their own support 
after paying all these items ? As the profits in the most lucra- 
tive industries do not exceed 50 per cent, of joint product, 
then, assigning to the farmers of the United States even such 
an immense proportion of the total product, we discover that 
the average farming family of the country receives, at the 
present, for their own support, an average income (net .profit) 
of $328 per year. Deducting 0.77 of agricultural laborer per 
farm from 6.9 persons to each farm, we discover that the 
average net income of farming family in the United States, 
amounting, according to the most liberal estimate possible, 
to $328 per year, must be divided among 6.13 persons to each 
farm, what gives for the members of farming families of the 
country an average net annual income of $53.50, i. e., $29.50 
less than the same income of agricultural laborer or an aver- 
age per capita net income of 14.6 cents per day, i. e., 8 cents 
less than an average net daily income of agricultural laborer 
of the country. With this miserable income, lower than the 
income of the lowest industrial strata of the land, the farm- 
ing family of this free country must secure food and clothing, 
educate the children and pay incident expenses. 

In report of the Industrial Commission on prison labor 
(Commission's Reports, Vol. VIII), we find data relating to 
the employment of prisoners during 1898 and 1899. In Ari- 



200 THE THIRD POWER 

zona the prisoners were worked by the Arizona Improvement 
Company under contract system. The territory was to receive 
compensation therefor at the rate of 70 cents per day per 
man employed (p. 81). In Connecticut, 240 prisoners were en- 
gaged in the manufacture of boots and shoes at the rate of 
50 cents per day per prisoner (p. 87). In Indiana, convicts 
were worked under contracts as follows : 200 men at 40 cents 
per day, 50 men at 42 cents per day and 130 men at 32% cents 
per day (p. 91). In Kentucky, convicts were worked under 
the lease system as follows : 650 men at the rate of 40 cents 
per day per man and 400 men at 35 cents per day (p. 95). 

Here we are confronted with the shocking and disgraceful 
fact that the agricultural population of the United States is 
compelled to live on an income much below that provided by 
different states for their convicts. 

The total expense of maintaining the United States Peni- 
tentiary, at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, during the year ending 
June 30, 1901, has been $160,316.88, and the daily average cost 
per capita about 54 cents. The average daily per capita cost 
of subsistence alone was about 11 cents (Annual Report of 
the Attorney-General of the United States for the year 1901, 

PP- 3<V 3i). 

Here we are confronted again with the cold fact that daily 
subsistence allowed by the United States to her convicts is 
somewhat greater than the daily subsistence gained by the 
American farmer and members of his family by their hardest 
and most unceasing toil (14.6 cents per capita per day for 
subsistence proper, clothing, education, etc.). 

How, then, it came to this, that in these days of "unprece- 
dented economic and commercial progress of the United 
States," in this "midst of halcyon prosperity of the country," 
the average American farmer, the real producer of all these 
"stupendous" and "tremendous" exports amazing the world, 
in respect to his average daily income stands below the Amer- 
ican convict if the census report is correct? Let us see. 

The very first question of foremost importance which con- 
fronts us in this connection is this : Is the American farmer 
living upon the results of ownership of the land which he 
tills or of his productive toil? Is he, in other words, receiv- 



INTERNATIONAL CONSOLIDATION 201 

ing his income from his investment of capital or from his 
labor? Almost every Agricultural Year Book, annually pub- 
lished by the United States Department of Agriculture, in- 
structs us that with improved agricultural machinery of to- 
day, even not taking in computation the almost phenomenal 
machinery of California wheat farms, the productive power 
of the modern farmer is at least ten times greater than that 
of the farmer of a few generations ago. Thus, if average an- 
nual income of modern American farmer is $582, the income 
of average farm in the United States 60 years ago should have 
been just $58.20. But it is self-evident that solid comfort 
of life of early American farmer could not be had for such 
a trifle. Mere absurdity of the result reached by this calcu- 
lation proves quite conclusively that the modern American 
farmer does not receive all he produces, to say nothing of re- 
ceiving more than he produces and if he does not receive more 
than he produces this means that his income amounting to $582 
a year derives, not from his investment of capital, but from 
his labor, the hardest and the most productive toil on the face 
of the earth. 

This unavoidable conclusion has been reached already, 
several years ago by a high authority on economic questions in 
the United States. "By using all available statistics," says 
Professor C. K. Walker, "it becomes evident again and again 
that deducting rent and interest, the American farmer receives 
less for his exertions than does the laborer in the factory or 
the hired man on the farm." The consequence is, that the 
American farmer of to-day is living largely on his accumu- 
lated capital or the returns therefrom, and that this capital is 
so fixed that he can not utilize it for any other than its 
present use without an almost total loss (American Economic 
Association Studies, 1897, p. 56). This conclusion finds its 
further corroboration in our calculations exhibited above. 
If the American farmer receives from his farm an average 
per capita income of 26 cents per day and out of this amount 
must pay the taxes, insurance, interest, the cost of seed, etc., 
so that no more than a per capita income of 10 cents per day 
can be left for support of himself and his family, while his 
hired help receives in his wages an average per capita in- 



202 THE THIRD POWER 

come of 22.7 cents per day, it becomes apparent in this partic- 
ular case the workman receives more than his employer and 
that the latter is simply his fellow co-worker, just with smaller 
pay. 

The most striking illustration of this social phenomenon 
of free country we find in the most interesting and instructive 
article by Charles B. Spahr, published about three years ago. 
"When I asked this farmer," says Mr. Spahr, "why the large 
farms were breaking up into small ones," he put the whole 
case in a single picturesque phrase. 'There are,' he said, 'only 
two sure crops in the country — ice and children, and the small 
farmer has the children.' " (The Outlook, November 4, 1899, 
p. 566.) This means that the small farmer can successfully 
compete with the large farms and even compete them out of 
existence, simply because he employs the cheapest labor in the 
land, resorts to incredible and unbearable toil of his wife and 
babes, to which no hired man will ever submit. Yet, while 
the conscience of the nation has been recently aroused against 
female and child labor in workshops and factories, no one 
ever mentions about the terrible lot of farmers' children and 
his wife, who, according to the most reliable statistics, fur- 
nishes the largest percentage to the American insane asylums. 

How, then, it came to this that the American farmers, who 
created the country and her institutions, once independent and 
contented producers, became reduced to the state of real pro- 
letarians of the land? 

This is a long story and we will try to make it as short as 
possible. 

This is a well-known fact that agriculture of to-day greatly 
differs from agriculture of several generations ago. While 
it still embraces several, more or less different industries, 
such as wheat raising, market gardening, poultry farming, bee 
farming, stock raising, etc., these are just a comparatively 
small part of all the industries, which constituted the agri- 
culture of olden times. As soon as any branch of old, origi- 
nal agriculture becomes subject to great mechanical improve- 
ments, as soon as it has been touched by great industrial ad- 
vance of our times, it is invariably taken from the farm and 
transferred to the factory. Whenever any process in agri- 



INTERNATIONAL CONSOLIDATION 203 

culture was greatly improved and performed with complex 
labor-saving machinery, created by tremendous mechanical 
progress of last century, it practically ceased to be a part of 
agriculture. Thus, the agricultural industry of past genera- 
tions has been divided and sub-divided into a great number 
of processes, which practically became separate industries, 
having been removed from all connections with the farm. 

Carding, weaving, spinning, knitting, cloth making, skim- 
ming (skimming stations), churning (creameries), butter 
making, cheese making, cotton ginning, rice hulling, thresh- 
ing, manufacture of agricultural implements, etc., all of these 
have left the farm more or less long ago and are concentrated 
in the factories. Beet sugar and meat packing industries rep- 
resent especially a whole class of industries that grew up out 
of olden, original agriculture. 

Thus we see that universal law of economic evolution, the 
law of differentiation and specialization with incident concen- 
tration, affected also the field of agriculture. The farmer of 
olden times, who was a general producer, whose income was 
always in direct proportion with his exertions (unless af- 
fected by natural calamities), has become to-day a specialist. 
As a specialist he is working within one little and narrow 
field, he is left to perform the most difficult and disagreeable 
processes, he is producing for sale instead of creating the 
wealth, as before, for his own benefit. To tell it shortly, the 
farmer has actually become a part of the competitive system. 
His customer is not some individual as heretofore desiring 
some article to be created for his use, but the great, imper- 
sonal, competitive world market. This fact of tremendous 
importance is almost invariably overlooked, not only by the 
farmer himself in reasoning about his own economic condi- 
tion, but even by almost every writer discussing the problems 
of agriculture. 

The size of the market reached by each farm has grown 
gradually and continually larger until the American farm, 
some time ago, an almost isolated industrial unit, met face 
to face with the world market. Just a few generations ago 
the American farmer made everything he needed upon his 
own farm and consequently cared nothing or little for what 



204 THE THIRD POWER 

the rest of the world might do. He produced for his own 
use and had little need for intercourse with the remainder of 
the world. Not so the American farmer of to-day, whose 
butter is made at the creamery and cheese at the factory and 
who never saw a suit of home-made clothes. He sells his 
grain and his fruit in the market of the world; he competes 
there, not only with the agricultural producers of all sections 
of his own country, but also with semi-tropical agricultural 
workers of the Argentine Republic and India and the peasants 
of South Russia. Therefore, droughts of South America, 
rains of India and floods of Russia affect his condition as 
much as similar occurrences in his own field. 

Every year as methods of production are improved, stronger 
grows the competition among agricultural producers all over 
the globe. Bulk)' products, like hay, straw and so-called fod- 
der in general are transformed into meat before being mar- 
keted, and in this form their market becomes as extensive as 
this of machinery or diamonds. Refrigerating system on 
railroad and steamship lines with cold storage warehouses 
have extended the market for once highly perishable products 
of dairy and poultry farming nearly to the same limits. Once 
new methods of transportation introduced, the cereals became 
eternally flowing through the channels of commerce and a 
few cents difference is sufficient to send them from one hemis- 
phere to another. 

This specialization of farming did not make, however, the 
task of the modern farmer any easier as it did in all other 
industries. To succeed in raising of many crops on modern, 
specialized farm, he must possess the knowledge of the chem- 
ical composition of the soil and of the system of fertilizing. 
The modern processes of sowing, tending and harvesting are 
comparatively very complex and to do them properly a modern 
farmer must have an elaborate and expensive equipment of 
complicated machines. The proper care of animals without 
a knowledge of scientific system of feeding is simply impos- 
sible. Truck farming and market gardening demand a knowl- 
edge of scientific application of heat, sun-light and plant food 
to growing plants. If the modern farmer has no knowledge 
of composition of the soil and of fertilizing, he is in many 



INTERNATIONAL CONSOLIDATION 205 

cases on the road to bankruptcy and foreclosure. If he does 
not possess a knowledge of fundamental principles of me- 
chanics, his expenses for repairs of machines will exceed all 
his income. The ignorance of the system of feeding animals 
will result in the cost of production being above the price 
fixed for the finished product and ruin is his lot. If he at- 
tempts after all to start truck farming or market gardening 
without a knowledge of scientific application of heat, sunlight, 
and plant food to growing plants, such an attempt in a very 
short time will result in disastrous failure and irreparable 
losses. 

The marketing of his products is, however, for the modern 
specialist farmer a much harder task yet than the production 
itself. While he is absolutely dependent on the market, he has 
practically no knowledge of modern methods or system of 
marketing. It is a well-known fact of the competitive system 
of our times that the success of every producer depends much 
more on his ability to sell than on his knowledge of the pro- 
cesses of production. In the field of modern American manu- 
facture, which is undoubtedly in much more advanced stage of 
development than modern American agriculture, the process 
of sale of many articles is much more expensive than the 
process of manufacturing the same. The former chiefly con- 
sists of impetuous advertising and skilful manipulating of the 
market. Thus the thing of foremost importance in modern 
marketing is to know what one's competitors are doing. The 
American manufacturer understands that perfectly, and what 
concerns him mostly in transaction of his business, is to learn 
in some way what his competitors are doing or intending to 
do. Not so with the American farmer. Not only he does not 
know what his competitors in some far away corner of the 
globe are doing, but in most cases even does not care to know 
what his neighbors are doing. Such a lack of knowledge of 
conditions of the market and its probable future movements 
puts the modern specialist farmer in the greatest disadvantage. 
He must either sell his crops to a local buyer, in which case 
the latter only knows the facts essential to the making of a 
bargain, or to intrust them to the noble and tender mercies 
of a commission man. Though such intrusting of the selling 



2o6 THE THIRD POWER 

of his products to the body of men he had never seen before 
might be considered little short of insanity, it should be said 
that in his present state of complete ignorance of modern 
methods of marketing and lack of organization, he has no 
other alternative, unless his crops are already sold in advance 
to some mortgage holder. 

It must be pointed out, however, that this is not a lack of 
knowledge or rather complete ignorance of the best methods 
of marketing alone that puts the American farmer in such a 
great disadvantage in the world market, where he must com- 
pete with the farmers of all producing countries. There is 
another yet most powerful factor, which, being coupled with 
the said lack of knowledge, not only compels the average 
farmer to sell to the first bidder, which appears after the 
harvest, but even makes such selling imperative. The mod- 
ern average farmer of the United States, being absolutely de- 
pendent on the market, lives from day to day under a constant 
and terrible pressure for cash, and, therefore, can not afford 
to hold his products for a better market. He can do that no 
more and even less than the American wage-worker can wait 
for his wages. 

But here the modern farmer's troubles by no means end. 
He may master perfectly all modern processes of agricultural 
production, he may possess the knowledge of modern methods 
of marketing, he may even own the land which he tills, he 
may, year by year, raise the bountiful crops, but as long as 
these are still on the farm, they are valueless. To make them 
of any value he must transport them to the place where they 
are wanted to satisfy human wants. Of course, he can not 
transport them in the old way because, in the modern com- 
petitive system of production, only the cheapest methods can 
be used, where several methods are operating in the same 
field. For this very reason, the old slow ox-team and hand- 
carried bags have given place to the railroad, steamship and 
elevator, with pneumatic transfer tubes that suck up a whole 
ship-load in about the same time it took the farmer of olden 
times to unload a wagon-box of wheat or corn with bags and 
scoop shovel. But, while the ox-team belonged to him, the 
railroad, the steamship and elevator belong to another party. 



INTERNATIONAL CONSOLIDATION 207 

Therefore, when he comes to the owners of railroads, tele- 
graphs, elevators, stock-yards, cold storage warehouses, etc., 
they charge him for their inevitable and indispensable serv- 
ices as much as "traffic will bear." Railway charges and ele- 
vator tolls, combined with farm and machine mortgages, 
swallow up almost all the value of his produce. 

Where, however, the modern specialist farmer of the United 
States is at the very tremendous and simply fatal disadvan- 
tage, this is in the final disposal of his crops. When, after all, 
he reaches the market, too often he finds there financial panics 
and fluctuations of prices, which sweep away practically all 
his possessions. Moreover, in the unhealthy structure of mod- 
ern industry, founded on the wrong adjustment of production 
and abnormal distribution of produce, a new species of pests 
were bred, immeasurably more injurious to the welfare of the 
American farmer than any pest known heretofore to his 
forefathers. A special class of men came into existence in 
this great competitive world market, who made it their busi- 
ness to defy the natural basic principle of social economy 
known as the law of demand and supply, and by misrepre- 
sentations, misinformations and frauds of all kinds to filch 
away from the farmer his produce. Speculators, grain deal- 
ers, grain buyers, grain gamblers, grain brokers, tobacco buy- 
ers, commission merchants, commission men, cotton factors, 
cotton brokers and many, many others, whose name is legion, 
stand between the agricultural producer of this free country 
and the consumer of his products. The farmers are so nu- 
merous, and the competition among them in disposal of their 
products is so fierce, that they are inevitably at the mercy of 
this numerous army of so-called middlemen immeasurably 
more than any other class of producers, being practically com- 
pelled to accept whatever price is offered. Moreover, the 
middlemen buy from the farmers practically upon commis- 
sion, and in this many not only make the latter sustain losses 
by their false reports as to the prices received, by dishonesty 
of their patrons and bad debts incident thereto, and by many 
other causes, but practically compel helpless agricultural pro- 
ducers of the country to supply the capital for their fraudulent 
operations, Being isolated and often lacking capital as well as 



208 THE THIRD POWER 

organization, the American farmer is unable to reach the con- 
sumers directly, and consequently is forced to a desperate 
bargain. 

It has been pointed out not only by some writers on mod- 
ern economic problems, but also in some official reports, that 
the latest tendency noticeable in the handling of agricultural 
products (as well as manufactured commodities) is to elim- 
inate the middlemen. This contention is the result of misun- 
derstanding, pure and simple. While the middlemen of small 
dimensions, like local grain buyers, are really disappearing, 
their place is taken by middlemen of much larger and posi- 
tively formidable dimensions like grain dealers' associations 
and line elevator companies, into whose control about 98 per 
cent, of cereals pass now on their way from the farmer's 
hands to the primary market. This simply shows that the 
process of capitalization and concentration of the American 
agriculture in the department of distribution goes on and on, 
and in this stage of modern American agriculture at least (as 
well as in all manufacturing production), the big fish eat up 
the little ones. That these new giant middlemen are infinitely 
more able to exploit the agricultural producer and press him to 
the wall than the small middlemen, now completely disappear- 
ing, does not require any argument. 

Thus in the field of modern, specialized American agricul- 
ture, we are confronted with the complex and most remark- 
able economic phenomenon. While in the stage of agricul- 
tural production small producers seem to compete out of exist- 
ence not only large farms, but even these immense "bonanza 
farms," which are destined to disappear in not distant future; 
in the stage of distribution of agricultural products we find 
undoubtedly an immense capitalization and concentration of 
agricultural industry. We dwell particularly on this point be- 
cause the relation of American agricultural production to 
American agricultural distribution constitutes a fundamental 
and most important of all the elements and factors, which de- 
termine the position of the American farmer in the modern 
American commonwealth. 

It is a well-known fact that millions of acres of the most 
fertile lands in the United States lie still untouched, not only 



INTERNATIONAL CONSOLIDATION 209 

by the plow, but also by surveyor's chain, awaiting the 
time when adequate irrigation works can be constructed. 
Breaking up of the old slave plantations in the South, which 
has taken place since the Civil War, has increased the number 
of small farms in the country very considerably. The opera- 
tion of the well-known "Homestead Law" created again over 
3,000,000 small farms. The immense grants of lands to rail- 
roads and for the benefit of schools, now surpassing 750,000,000 
acres, resulted again in the creation of several millions of 
small farms, and even great "bonanza farms," which have had 
their origin in the same stupendous grants, are gradually 
breaking up into .thousands of small farms. So long as there 
is in the world more land than is required to produce neces- 
sary agricultural produce, the ownership of the land means 
very little and conveys very little advantage. So long as the 
ownership of the land can be obtained so easily as in the 
United States and in the whole of America generally, this 
ownership economically amounts to almost nothing. With im- 
proved machinery and improved methods of agriculture, the 
amount of land required for a given amount of product grows 
continually less. With modern methods of intensive agricul- 
tural production — approximately speaking — Texas alone could 
supply the present world's demand for cotton, and the Amer- 
ican "wheat belt" certainly could produce all the wheat neces- 
sary to satisfy the wants of the population of the globe. If the 
latter will ever become so increased as to require the entire 
surface of the earth for support it is extremely doubtful, and 
presents, in our days the matter of merely theoretical interest 
anyway. It seems, however, that a much larger portion of the 
available land of the world is already under tillage, when cul- 
tivated intensively, than will be required for the support of 
any population that can appear for many generations. Mean- 
while farm laborers in the United States become proportion- 
ately scarcer and scarcer every hour. Every year, particularly 
when harvesting season approaches, the farmers of the coun- 
try, especially in the Central West, complain more and more 
insistively that good farm hands are more and more difficult 
to secure. While the American farmer needs more and more 
intelligent workmen, because the agricultural machinery be- 



210 THE THIRD POWER 

comes more and more complicated and demands a high intel- 
ligence for its operation, the qualifications of agricultural 
wage-earners in the United States are becoming lower and 
lower. So it becomes self-evident that the share of land in 
agricultural production of the country is extremely insig- 
nificant and the item representing the ownership of the land 
(interest on the capital invested in the total value of the re- 
turns of agricultural industry of the United States) is infi- 
nitely small. Thus the total value of agricultural production 
of the country, which in 1899 amounted to $4,739,118,752, or 
$826 per farm, represents almost exclusively the labor of the 
American farmers (owners, half owners, share tenants and 
cash tenants) performed by the farmer, his wife and his 
babes, with entirely insignificant help of hired men (just 0.77 
per farm in 1900), only "bonanza farms" excepted. This is 
the very reason why the small farmer of this free country 
competes out of existence the great "bonanza farms," which 
are at present breaking up and gradually disappearing. By 
virtue of eternal and incredible toil of himself and his family 
in the fields, from sunrise to sunset of a long summer day, the 
small American farmer performed the impossible economic 
feat of eating up the big fish of American agriculture. This 
feat puzzled all writers of his country on economics, and some 
of them have even been driven to nervous prostration or to 
convulsions. 

According to the latest and most realiable official wage sta- 
tistics, farm laborers of this country during the last decade of 
the last century have never been working less than ten hours 
a day (sixty hours per week), quite often twelve hours a day 
(seventy-two hours per week), and in some instances fifteen 
hours a day (ninety hours per week) (Fifteenth Annual Re- 
port of the Commissioner of Labor, 1900, pp. 532-534). Now, 
any one who knows anything about the American agriculture, 
knows very well that farmers themselves and members of their 
families, as a rule, work much longer hours than their "hired 
men," hastily picked up from anywhere. Thus it appears that 
cold and impartial eloquence of figures confirms our conclu- 
sion, that the American farmer, his wife and his babes work 
longer hours than any other working being in the land and 



INTERNATIONAL CONSOLIDATION 211 

receive for their superhuman exertions the lowest pay known 
to the world of toil. 

As long as the American farmer and members of his fam- 
ily are compelled to toil at least twelve hours on the average 
day; as long as his wife is overwhelmed by the work prac- 
tically never done ; as long as his babes have to work from the 
time that they are strong enough to walk — and are extremely 
happy — if they are not kept out of school during planting, 
harvesting, corn-husking and fruit pickings ; as long as the or- 
dinary farmer hires a man only during seed time and harvest, 
just for three or four weeks altogether, it makes no essential 
difference in the situation if he owns or rents a farm of three 
acres, or three hundred acres, and if he hires annually a man 
or one hundred men. There are thousands of hard workers in 
this terrible sweating trade of the large cities of the United 
States, who undertake much more work than they can per- 
form by themselves, and to get through hire a few of their 
fellow workers, more or less systematically, paying them out 
of their own wages. Still such undertaking resulting in the 
hiring of help does not turn them into employers or capitalists. 
In the mining industry of this country there are also thou- 
sands of workers who, possessing a great experience in the 
trade, undertake the work on a much larger scale than they 
can perform by themselves, and in order to perform it, period- 
ically hire a few of their fellow workers, paying them out of 
their own wages. But this does not turn them into any labor 
employers, in the proper meaning of the word and capitalists 
of any description. The more so with the farmers. They hire 
a few men periodically for very short time altogether, paying 
them, as we have shown already, higher wages than they get 
themselves, to say nothing of their wives and children. The 
returns of the last census show quite conclusively that the 
average size of the farm in the United States is decreasing 
(Reports of Twelfth Census, Vol. V, p. XXI), while in the 
same time the tenancy is permanently growing. Here is the 
table showing the growth of the tenancy in this country, com- 
piled by us from two different tables relating to the subject, 
which we find in the same Reports : 



212 THE THIRD POWER 

(Vol. V, p. LXXVII) : 



Year. 


Total No. 
Farmers. 


Owners. 


Cash Tenants. 


Share Tenants. 


1880.... 
1890.... 
1900. . . . 


4,008,907 
4,564.641 
5,739,657 


2,984,306 (74.5*) 
3,269,728 (71.656) 
3,7i3,37i (64.7*) 


322,357 ( 8. 56) 
454,659 (10.6^) 
752,920 (13.1W 


702,244 (17.5*) 

840,254 (18.456) 

1,273,366 (22.256) 



Of 5,739,657 farms in the United States June 1, 1900, there 
have been of those under three acres in size, 41,882, or 7 per 
cent. ; of three acres and under ten, 226,564, or 4 per cent. ; of 
ten acres and under twenty, 407,012, or 7.1 per cent.; of twenty- 
acres and under fifty, 1,257,785, or 21.9 per cent. ; of fifty acres 
and under 100, 1,366,167, or 23.8 per cent.; of 100 acres and 
under 175, 1,422,328, or 24.8 per cent. ; of 175 acres and under 
260, 490,104, or 8.5 per cent.; of 260 acres and under 500, 2>77>- 
992, or 6.6 per cent.; of 500 acres and under 1,000, 102,547, or 
1.8 per cent.; and of 1,000 acres and over, 47,276, or 0.8 per 
cent (Reports of Twelfth Census, Vol. V, pp. XLIII-LIII). 
Thus the farms of fifty acres and under 100, and of 100 and 
under 175, are predominating in this country very conspicu- 
ously and, put together, constitute 48.6 per cent, of the total, 
while farms exceeding 1,000 acres comprise just 0.8 per cent, 
of the total (as reported by the division of agriculture). 
"Bonanza farms" are gradually disappearing (Reports of 
Twelfth Census, Vol. V, pp. XLIII-LIII), leaving the owners, 
part owners, cash tenants and share tenants of medium sized 
and small farms in full possession of the farming industry of 
this country. So it is evident that by both the size, as well as 
the source of his income, the farmer of the United States in 
the economic constitution of the country can not be classified 
otherwise than a skilled laborer specialized in the agricultural 
production. The only difference between the American 
farmer and his "hired man" in this respect is this : the farmer 
has a permanent job, while the latter enjoys a chance employ- 
ment. This relation of the American farmer to his hired 
laborer bears all essential features of relations of the skilled 
laborer to the unskilled laborer in all other trades. It must 
be remembered in this connection that a very large proportion 



INTERNATIONAL CONSOLIDATION 213 

of hired agricultural laborers of the country is composed of 
the tramps, outcasts of the large cities, and other representa- 
tives of the lowest industrial strata of the modern American 
commonwealth. This permanency of the farmer's job is, how- 
ever, delusive to a considerable extent, as the uncertainty sur- 
rounding agriculture, combined with fluctuations of prices, 
threaten too often to sweep away all the results of his labor, 
representing besides many other items the wages of himself, 
his wife and his babes. Thus it can be seen quite clearly that 
the farmers of the United States constitute one homogenous 
body of skilled agricultural laborers, just of little different 
calibre and consequently of little different economic standing. 
This we find also in all other trades and industries of the 
country. Their wages, however, as we have proven already, 
are the lowest known to the world of labor and make them 
real proletarians of the land. 

Thus we see that on the productive side of American agri- 
culture are grouped the workers exclusively and on its dis- 
tributive side the capitalists exclusively, while the mortgage 
holders constitute a particular class by themselves, which does 
not belong either to the productive or distributive side of ag- 
ricultural industry of the United States. They are invariably 
bankers, stock-brokers and professional money-lenders, and 
usually residents of a few of the largest cities of the country. 

Turning our eyes to Europe, we find there a similar condi- 
tion of agricultural industry and a similar grouping of con- 
tending economic forces on its productive and distributive 
sides. Everywhere, even in England, the classical and tradi- 
tional realm of primogeniture and landlordism, large landed 
estates are at present breaking up, much slower, of course, 
than the American "bonanza farms," gradually dissolving in 
small holdings passing into the hands of peasants and agricul- 
tural laborers of various names. Thus the average size of 
European farms is decreasing just the same as in the United 
States, the number of small farms gradually increasing and 
the army of tenants permanently growing. In a similar man- 
ner the character of agricultural wage-workers of the Old 
World -is gradually deteriorating, while the agricultural in- 
dustry there, just the same as in this country, demands more 



2i 4 THE THIRD POWER 

and more intelligent and efficient workers. In order to secure 
more or less permanent and efficient agricultural labor the 
owners of great landed estates enter with the agricultural 
wage-workers and farmers of adjoining localities into special 
agreements, therein granting to them special privileges and 
particular inducements. In this way lack of the labor power 
on the great landed estates of Europe has resulted in the grow- 
ing of especial productive agricultural units combining the 
features of agricultural trusts with those of agricultural labor 
unions. These agricultural combinations of Europe, however, 
even with the addition to them of American "bonanza farms" 
existing as yet, constitute relatively such a small percentage 
of all the productive agricultural forces of the civilized coun- 
tries of the world, i. e., of all these countries which passed 
already the primordial stage of production by individual farm- 
ers for their own use only, that agriculturists of all the civ- 
ilized world practically constitute a homogenous body of agri- 
cultural producers. The slight admixture to this body of 
"bonanza farms" of the United States, now gradually disap- 
pearing, and of the above mentioned new productive agricul- 
tural units of Europe, combining the features of an agricul- 
tural trust with those of agricultural labor union, does not 
change a bit the character of the said body of agricultural 
producers all over the civilized world as agricultural laborers 
producing all the salable food-stuffs for the world's consump- 
tion. Therefore, the interests of agricultural producers all 
around the civilized world, American "bonanza farms" and 
European landowners not excepted, are absolutely identical. 
These interests, being exclusively concentrated on the pro- 
ductive side of the agricultural industry of all civilized coun- 
tries in its entity, are opposed by similarly identical interests 
of an immense army of agricultural middlemen of the newest 
type. Among them the railroad and elevator companies are 
representatives of comparative honesty and leniency for the 
producers. The immense army of non-producers, concen- 
trated, also exclusively, on the distributive side of the indus- 
try, especially in the persons of produce gamblers, produce 
brokers, produce commission men, produce commission mer- 
chants, produce stock gamblers and produce stock brokers, 



INTERNATIONAL CONSOLIDATION 215 

invariably succeed to filch away from the farmer his produce 
and deprive him almost entirely of the results of his labors. 

While in this country, as well as in all other civilized coun- 
tries, t. i., the countries which have entered already the stage 
of competitive agricultural production, nature yields her 
bounty to the producer in direct proportion to his efforts, but 
social relations rob him of nearly all he creates, while in other 
words, the army of non-producers arrayed on the distributive 
side of agricultural industry by virtue of their ownership of 
means of distribution, and particularly and especially by crim- 
inal manipulations of the produce market, daily commit an 
open and outrageous highway robbery on the farmer all over 
the world, while the American farmer, as well as the farmer 
of all civilized countries, just the infinitesimal percentage of 
"bonanza farms" and great European landowners excepted, 
have become practically reduced to the status of proletarians of 
the lands, hereby the economic outrage perpetrated on the 
farmer of modern civilized world by modern social conditions, 
by no means ends. Under the present system the producers of 
agricultural products in the United States must foot the entire 
cost of production, which, at a conservative estimate, must 
foot up to two billions dollars ($2,000,000,000) a year. If the 
agricultural producer of the country sells his wheat at a dollar 
per bushel and pays five dollars for a suit of clothes, the latter 
costs him five bushels of wheat, but when the protective tariff 
raises the price of the same suit of clothes to ten dollars, the 
latter costs the farmer already ten bushels of wheat instead 
of five bushels, as before. Thus the price of the suit has been 
raised for the farmer simply by the governmental action (the 
Tariff Act) irrespectively of its intrinsic value. In this way 
the protective tariff works in the United States all along the 
line, raising the cost of manufactured products averagely by 
80 per cent., and thus practically reducing the proletarian in- 
come of the average farmer just to 20 per cent, of its nominal 
size. In this way it came to pass that in the case of the Amer- 
ican farmer the question of the price for his produce is not 
even the question of absolute quantity of money, received by 
him for the same, but simply the question of a proper pro- 
portion. Similar is the condition of the farmer in all agricul- 



216 THE THIRD POWER 

tural surplus producing countries. It is very remarkable in 
this respect that the two leading agricultural countries of the 
globe — United States and Russia — which practically are the 
granaries of the world, possess the most atrocious protective 
tariffs on the face of the earth, thus putting all the burdens 
of fostering manufactures of the countries on the shoulders 
of their agricultural producers. 

Therefore the amelioration of the condition of the Amer- 
ican farmer lies undoubtedly in the same direction as the 
amelioration of the condition of the farmers of all civilized 
countries the world over. The American farmer being just a 
part of all the creators of agricultural wealth of the civilized 
world, his interests being identical with and just a part of the 
interests of all the agricultural producers of the globe, rem- 
edies for his wrongs must necessarily and inevitably be the 
same as those for wrongs of the farmers of all the civilized 
world. In order to find out the means of relief from social 
oppression and economic exploitation for the American farmer 
(as well as for the farmer of all the civilized countries) we 
have evidently to seek out the laws of economic advance, in- 
dustrial growth and social evolution, because all the measures 
to accomplish all these high and just aims, if taken in opposi- 
tion to the direction of social evolution and economic ad- 
vance would inevitably prove abortive and disastrous. The 
history of all previous efforts at bringing relief to the farmers 
from social oppression and economic exploitation, ever made 
in the United States, as well as in various foreign countries 
(which history is outside of the province of our short sketch 
on the subject), is highly eloquent and sufficiently instructive 
in this respect. Thus the laws of modern economic and social 
evolution are to be defined at first. 

It does not require a particularly strong intellect or very 
keen power of observation to see that modern state of society 
all around the world is a state of universal war, political as 
well as economic, war of different political and economic 
classes within the separate states as well as between the states 
themselves, with complete anarchy and undescribable horrors 
incident thereto. 

This universal economic war and inevitable anarchy, result- 



INTERNATIONAL CONSOLIDATION 217 

ing therefrom, constitute what is usually called "free compe- 
tition." Fierce and bloody struggle on the economic field of 
the world of hundreds of thousands and millions of compet- 
itors naturally results in killing off and driving out of busi- 
ness an overwhelming majority of them. In modern indus- 
tries (except agriculture) the advantages of large scale pro- 
duction are so great that the smaller establishments must in- 
evitably and continually fail in "free competition," and in 
course of time these industries must of necessity be concen- 
trated in a very small number of very large establishments. 
Then the owners of these surviving establishments agree to 
put a stop to the process by suspending competition. Thus the 
trusts are the natural outgrowth of modern industrial condi- 
tions. They do not owe their existence to any legislative de- 
vice and consequenly can not be prevented by the same. They 
are as far beyond legislative control as the procession of the 
seasons of the year. The mere concentration of industry in 
a few large establishments does not constitute, however, the 
trust; it only creates conditions favorable to the formation of 
a trust. The trust is formed only when some sort of an agree- 
ment is entered into by surviving competitors whereby com- 
petition among themselves is suspended. In its original stage 
it was a mere agreement relating to prices and output. It 
passed through several stages until finally the typical trust is 
a single huge corporation which has absorbed a number of 
competing corporations. Thus in its original stage the trust 
was not a factor of concentration, but a means to prevent still 
further concentration. There is always a strong probability 
that the same conditions which destroyed a large number of 
small competitors, leaving only a few large ones in the field, 
would continue until all but one should succumb, leaving only 
a single surviving concern in complete and absolute posses- 
sion of the field. In order to suspend these conditions and 
prevent this form of concentration the compact is entered into. 
It is a sort of agreement relating to the cessation of industrial 
hostilities, a measure for preserving the balance of industrial 
power, a kind of industrial disarmament. These compacts 
could not, however, prevent still further concentration tend- 
ing to exterminate all competitors but one, leaving only a 



218 THE THIRD POWER 

single surviving establishment in the field of each industry, 
but they resulted in changing the methods of concentration 
from the extermination of competitors to the peaceful absorp- 
tion of the same. Thus the compacts, constituting the original 
form of trusts, finally resulted in the benefits for the surviving 
competitors, saving them from the horrors of a life-and-death 
struggle and inevitable extermination. 

The stage of political development, through which the world 
is passing, is absolutely identical with the stage of modern 
economic development. The proposals of disarmament in the 
field of international politics are identical with the suspension 
of competition among a few large competitors in the industrial 
field. As the sheer dread of a struggle between any of the 
great military powers of to-day is sufficient to create a general 
anxiety for some other means of settling international dis- 
putes, similarly the sheer dread of a life-and-death struggle 
among a few huge competitors in the industrial field, involv- 
ing the loss of millions, is sufficient to inspire all those directly 
concerned with an anxiety for a peaceful settlement. As the 
disarmament or suspension of hostilities among the members 
of the trust threatens more the existence of small competi- 
tors, remaining outside of the trust, so the very existence of 
the small states never hung by so slender a thread as in these 
days of peace congresses and proposal for disarmament. The 
fact that the sentiment against the war among the great pow- 
ers is so strong renders war among them much more improb- 
able than ever before. As the formation of an agreement, 
whereby the competition was suspended among a few gigantic 
producers in certain industries, was for the purpose of pre- 
venting still further concentration, so in the field of interna- 
tional politics general disarmament is intended to prevent still 
further political concentration. As such still further indus- 
trial concentration could not be prevented, but its methods 
changed from the extermination of competitors to the peace- 
ful absorption of the same, so in the field of international pol- 
itics still further political concentration could not be prevented 
by the movement in favor of general disarmament, but the 
methods of such concentration changed from the process of 
military conquest to the process of "benevolent assimilation." 



INTERNATIONAL CONSOLIDATION 219 

The process of economic concentration did not leave, of 
course, the field of agriculture untouched, though, as we have 
shown already, in this field it took a form somewhat different 
from that, into which it developed in the field of manufactur- 
ing industries. The reasons for such a difference are mani- 
fold and more or less obvious as in agricultural industry the 
limit, beyond which further enlargement of scale of produc- 
tion ceased to be advantageous, has been reached long before 
the number of competitors was reduced to a few, and agri- 
cultural trust in its essentials identical with a manufacturing 
trust became unnatural and therefore impossible. A large 
farm may have certain advantages over a small farm, but the 
limit, beyond which large scale farming can not be profitably 
carried, is soon reached. It would therefore be impossible for 
larger farmers to continue crowding out the smaller ones 
until the whole market for agricultural products could be sup- 
plied from a few enormous farms. This is one of the reasons 
that an agricultural trust, essentially identical with a manu- 
facturing trust, has become impossible. Another almost equally 
important reason for this is the universal lack of agricultural 
labor in all civilized countries and marked deterioration of its 
character. Nevertheless, in spite of this important difference 
of processes and forms of concentration in agriculture and 
manufactures, another essential feature of such concentration 
in both fields are identical. On the productive side of agricul- 
ture we find a continually increasing application of capital 
(machinery, etc.) and labor to any given area of ground, 
which makes a final transition from an extensive to an inten- 
sive method of cultivation. This is the same process which 
takes place in all industries. On the distributive side of ag- 
riculture we find a continually increasing control of the industry 
by a few other industries, namely: coal production, iron pro- 
duction, power transmission and transportation. This is also 
the process which is common to all industries of our times. 

Having considered all essential features of evolution of ag- 
ricultural industry as compared with those of manufactures, 
one can not fail to see that, while the stage of development, 
through which all the industries (except agriculture) are now 
passing, presents a fierce and bloody war between immense 



220 THE THIRD POWER 

industrial armies concentrated in a few points of industrial 
field, inevitably leading to the proposals for disarmament in 
the form of agreements to suspend the competition and to the 
changing of methods of industrial concentration, the modern 
stage of development of agricultural industry presents an un- 
ceasing, persistent and exhaustive guerrilla warfare between 
millions of small guerrilla bands scattered all around the agri- 
cultural field of the civilized world, the bands, which never 
thought as yet not only of disarmament, but even of armistice. 
This state of not belonging to one of the immense industrial 
armies of our times, but of conducting the exhaustive guerrilla 
warfare in the agricultural field in a small band, »sually con- 
sisting of the members of his family with an occasionally hired 
helper, is the very independence, of which the American farmer 
so thoughtlessly and so ignorantly boasts. 

Having thus defined the laws of modern social and economic 
evolution, we can see without any difficulty the lines along 
which the amelioration of the condition of the American 
farmer can be accomplished and must be conducted. In all 
civilized countries, i. e., the countries which have already 
emerged out of the stage of agricultural production by indi- 
vidual farmers for their own use only and entered the stage 
of production by them for sale, the agricultural industry pre- 
sents a state of a stupendous and monstrous guerrilla warfare 
of millions of small farming bands with indescribable eco- 
nomic anarchy incident thereto, usually miscalled "free com- 
petition." The same as there are no means to humanize the 
war and alieviate its horrors because the atrocity, brutality 
and ferocity can not be humanized, there are no means also 
to humanize this heinous economic guerrilla war between the 
agricultural producers all over the world. As long as war, 
either political or economic, exists there always will be some 
killed and disabled for life, to say nothing about its terrible 
demoralizing and degrading influence on the future genera- 
tions. The only means to humanize the war, either political 
or economic, is to abolish it altogether. Thus, this guerrilla 
warfare between the farmers of all civilized countries must 
be stopped at once. Prices of all agricultural products as 
well as their outputs must be defined and regulated since by 



INTERNATIONAL CONSOLIDATION 221 

international agreements of their producers. As international 
surplus of each agricultural product, composed of separate 
national surpluses of the same, exported by different pro- 
ducing countries, in its grand total is a paramount, if not only, 
factor in establishing prices for the product, these international 
agreements of agricultural producers of the world shall have 
relation just to prices and outputs of export agricultural 
products. They will be sufficient to bring the agricultural 
industry of all the civilized world out of the present state of 
self-destructive competition and economic anarchy to the 
harmony of socialized and intelligently organized cooperative 
production and distribution, securing to the farmers of all 
civilized countries a fair and profitable price for their pro- 
ducts. If these international agreements of agricultural pro- 
ducers would be international agricultural trusts, then let us 
have international agricultural trusts. It must be pointed out 
right here that the evolution from anarchy of competition 
to trust stage in any industry represents a social and economic 
advance of tremendous importance and far-reaching results. 
It is an universal and immutable biological law, running 
through all forms of life, economic realm not excepted, that 
that form of it becomes the fittest for existence and destined 
to survive, which first succeeds in eliminating waste. Ac- 
cordingly, in the economic field, as soon as a certain form of 
waste has been abolished and a new method of accomplish- 
ing the same result with less energy substituted, the old 
wasteful method is thereby abolished and never can be re- 
vived. The most remarkable growth of trusts in the United 
States since the panic of 1894- 1895 is but a decisive step in 
the direction of elimination of waste and improvement of pro- 
duction. In the modern state of industrial anarchy, known 
under the name of "free competition," plants, machinery and 
processes are quadrupled, and production is entirely unregu- 
lated so that natural resources, mechanical power and human 
facilities are destroyed in the most reckless manner, in efforts 
of different firms to undersell each other and drive all the 
competitors out of existence. The trust brings order into 
this industrial and economic chaos, and in this respect it is 
undoubtedly and undeniably a factor of great economic and 



222 THE THIRD POWER 

social progress. But, as in agricultural industry of the civil- 
ized world, all its iniquities and evils are concentrated ex- 
clusively on the distributive side, similarly in this new trust 
movement all evils and iniquities of the latter are concentrated 
on its subjective side. Being perfectly right, inevitable and 
beneficial in their object, which is the improvement in pro- 
duction, the trusts are monstrously wrong and harmful in 
their subject, i. e., as to the character of their present owner- 
ship. While trust is to industry as a whole what the machine 
is to the single establishment, — a means of saving time and 
productive power, the fact of their ownership being concen- 
trated in a few hands, turns them into the instruments of in- 
dustrial exploitation and economic enslavement of all pro- 
ducers of wealth. But just broaden their subject, just let all 
the people participate in their ownership, and all their evils 
will be transformed into the greatest benefits for the masses. 
As any attempt to oppose the economic and social advance 
represented by the trust movement, while being practically an 
attempt to move backward into the anarchy of the old com- 
petitive system, would be necessarily and inevitably abortive, 
if not disastrous, the only problem which confronts the 
human society in the trust issue is not, how to abolish or 
even hamper and restrict them, but how to use them for the 
benefit of all the people. The fate of anti-trust legislation in 
the United States is highly demonstrative and sufficiently in- 
structive in this respect. Introduction and growth of profit- 
sharing and arbitration principles in the trust movement in 
the United States as well as in other manufacturing coun- 
tries, especially in England, is exactly the principal move- 
ment in the direction of broadening the subjective side of the 
trust system, which is destined to transform them into eco- 
nomic and social factors, highly beneficial for the masses. 
As human society is not merely a mechanical conglomerate 
of individuals and represents some organic whole, and as, 
furthermore, it always develops as a whole, in one direction 
at a time only, the agricultural trusts seem to be bound to 
come. However peculiar conditions of agriculture in all 
civilized countries, which preclude its being concentrated in 
a few hands and render such a concentration impossible, are 



INTERNATIONAL CONSOLIDATION 223 

necessarily and inevitably tending to eliminate all objection- 
able features of manufacturing trusts from these coming 
agricultural trusts in their very inception. Therefore, if any 
agricultural trusts will ever come, they can not be anything 
else but organizations highly beneficial for all agricultural 
producers as well as for the human society in its entirety. 
The same social and economic conditions, which have created 
national trusts, will undoubtedly create international ones — 
manufacturing as well as agricultural — if the latter are bound 
to come at all, what seems to be certain. Thus, if interna- 
tional agreements of agricultural producers relating to prices 
and outputs of each exported agricultural product, now be- 
ing suggested by us, even would be international agricultural 
trusts, our suggestion would be just in the strictest accord 
with direction of economic development and industrial growth 
of modern society and undoubtedly would be bound to pro- 
duce the greatest benefits for agricultural producers of all 
the civilized countries as well as for all mankind in general. 

Nevertheless, international organizations of producers of ex- 
ported agricultural products, now first time being suggested 
by us, would not be and can not be trusts. We have proven 
already beyond any dispute that the . vmerican farmer is 
simply a skilled agricultural laborer and that the price he re- 
ceives for his produce represents merely his wages. There- 
fore, United States branches of these international agricul- 
tural organizations would be undoubtedly just agricultural 
labor unions. Identical with this in the United States is 
the condition of agriculture on all the American continent, 
and thus all American branches of the said international agri- 
cultural organizations would be simply agricultural labor 
unions. Very similar with the condition of agriculture in all 
the American countries is the condition of the same in all 
the civilized countries of the old world. Great landed es- 
tates of Europe, now of necessity combining the features of 
agricultural trusts with essential features of agricultural labor 
unions, represent relatively such a small percentage of all 
productive agricultural forces of the old world that they can 
not change a bit the character of European agricultural pro- 
ducers as simply skilled agricultural laborers. Therefore, in- 



224 THE THIRD POWER 

ternational organizations of producers of exported agricul- 
tural products, now first time being suggested by us, a new- 
est and only means for amelioration of the condition of the 
farmer all over the civilized world, beyond any dispute, will 
be just international agricultural labor unions. Thus, we 
venture to call out so loudly that all the world could hear: 
"Farmers of all countries, great landowners attending to your 
business on your estates not excepted, unite : this is the only 
way to beat the wolf of speculator and price manipulator, suck- 
ing your blood, off your back !" 

Now from the exposition of economic principles of inter- 
national consolidation of agricultural interests of all civil- 
ized countries, we have to turn to the practical side of the 
case. 

The transition from the present competitive system in agri- 
cultural industry of the civilized countries to the new cooper- 
ative one, now first time being suggested by us, as a newest 
and only means for raising most miserable income of the 
farmer all over the civilized world, and for the general ameli- 
oration of his present pitiful condition, in order to be effective 
and able to bring about desired results, must be accomplished 
fully and thoroughly. It would be of course a very great 
step toward such amelioration for the farmers of all surplus 
producing countries to enter into international agreements 
relating to prices and outputs of exported agricultural prod- 
ucts, but this would not be enough. Before all, and above 
all, they ought to be able to maintain the prices agreed 
upon between themselves by the said international agreement 
on their national as well as local markets. Otherwise the 
transition from the competitive to the cooperative system in 
the agriculture of the world would be just merely a nominal 
one, without any practical significance whatsoever. 

In the field of agriculture cooperation, in full meaning of 
the word, found as yet so limited application and its results 
in the modern hostile environment have been so sporadic and 
so uncertain that a wild confusion in respect to this com- 
paratively new principle of social economy in its application 
to agriculture prevails, not only in the minds of ordinary 
mortals, but even in the intellects of political economists and 



INTERNATIONAL CONSOLIDATION 225 

writers on agricultural economics. Therefore, a few explana- 
tions of this economic principle as applied to the field of 
agriculture, would be, not only appropriate, but even nec- 
essary. 
There are three kinds of cooperation in agriculture, namely: 

(1) Cooperation in agricultural production, 

(2) Cooperation in direct purchasing by the agricultural 
producers of the articles desired by themselves and members 
of their families, and 

(3) Cooperation in distribution of agricultural products, 
t. i., in the marketing of the same. 

Of these three kinds, or rather phases of agricultural co- 
operation, the first has been tried the most, and consequently 
is known the best. The greatest majority of cooperative 
communities, established in the United States in the second 
part of the last century have been representatives of coopera- 
tion in agricultural production. As long, however, as modern 
system of distribution of agricultural products exists, as long 
as by organized forces of exploitation, concentrated on dis- 
tributive side of agricultural industry, the agricultural pro- 
ducer is deprived of almost all results of his labor and 
driven invariably and inevitably to the point of mere sub- 
sistence, no improvement in agricultural production, coopera- 
tion in the same not excepted, can ameliorate the condition 
of the farmer of the civilized world. This is the very cause 
of the failure of almost all cooperative communities, usually 
established by the most enlightened and progressive thinkers 
of the age, in the United States as well as in the old world. 
No matter how much increases the agricultural production, 
almost nothing of this is left to the producer by the vicious 
and criminal system of modern agricultural distribution. 

Cooperation in direct purchasing by the agricultural pro- 
ducers of articles desired by themselves and members of their 
families, entirely eliminating middlemen of all kinds and 
descriptions, constituted the first aim, and paramount object 
of existence and activity of the National Grange. It is known 
that in 1876, the Grangers owned five steamboat lines, thirty- 
two elevators, and twenty-two warehouses. Of all these very 
extensive financial and commercial transactions of the Grange 



226 THE THIRD POWER 

only mutual insurance companies and cooperative stores sur- 
vived the wreck of 1879, and their only result is, at present, 
a very large mail order house, known as the "Original Grange 
Supply House." This kind, or rather phase of agricultural 
cooperation, entirely eliminating middlemen of all sorts and 
descriptions from the dealings of the farmer with the pro- 
ducers of other products, reduces the prices of all the articles 
wanted by himself and members of his family, to a certain 
extent and in this way increases purchasing capacity of his 
miserable income. Thus can be said of this phase of coopera- 
tion in agricultural industry, that it indirectly increases the 
income of the farmer. Nevertheless, as long as prices on his 
own products are fixed in the most arbitrary, oppressive and 
highway robbery manner by the forces and factors of exploita- 
tion, concentrated exclusively on distributive side of the in- 
dustry, such an indirect increase of his income, always in- 
definite and uncertain, occasional and necessarily temporary, 
can not seriously affect his deplorable condition and bring 
to him more or less noticable relief. The fate of the Grange 
represents the most eloquent and unanswerable argument in 
this respect. 

Turning to the third and last phase of cooperation in agri- 
culture, t. i., cooperation in marketing of agricultural prod- 
ucts, it should be said this kind of agricultural cooperation 
is a thing entirely unknown as yet to the modern industrial 
and commercial world. It would be then an entirely new 
machine put to work in the huge structure of modern agri- 
cultural industry. This cooperation in marketing of agri- 
cultural products by the farmers should consist of their social- 
ized, concerted and coordinated efforts to sell their products 
intelligently, with precise knowledge of the condition of 
markets — local and national as well as international ones. 
While the present competitive system of marketing of agri- 
cultural products represents simply the blind throwing of 
them on the next market in uncertain quantities, and at in- 
definite, mostly inopportune times, so that they must take 
their chances in finding there any purchaser at any price, the 
new cooperative system of marketing of these products, 
founded on the precise knowledge of the condition of the 



INTERNATIONAL CONSOLIDATION 227 

market, would represent the intelligent, methodical throwing 
of agricultural products on certain market in certain quantities 
and at definite times, so that, with relation of supply to de- 
mand being discounted, they would certainly find their pur- 
chasers at certain, established price. Thus, by the cooperative 
system of marketing, only the above mentioned international 
agreements of agricultural producers as to prices for their 
products can be realized, and thereby their present miserable 
income raised, what would mean a genuine improvement in 
their pitiful condition. It appears, therefore, that in agri- 
cultural industry of our times the cooperative system of mar- 
keting is really a whole thing, while all others, its factors 
and conditions, are indisputably just secondary and subordi- 
nate ones. So, according to the new cooperative system of 
agricultural industry now suggested by us, or rather to the 
cooperative system of agriculture in its full meaning and 
complete application, prices of all agricultural products shall 
be established on the ground: (1) of relation of the world's 
production of the product to the world's demand for the 
product, and, (2) of costs of its production, with a fair profit 
added. As of these two factors, which shall determine the 
price of each agricultural product in the coming Cooperative 
Agricultural Commonwealth of the World, the first, t. i., rela- 
tion of production to demand, is entirely a natural one, and 
the second, t. i., costs of production with a fair profit added, 
just as much an artificial one as affected by protective tariff, 
the price thus determined and established will not be fixed 
arbitrarily for the consumers. On the contrary, as the new 
cooperative price for all agricultural products shall be deter- 
mined and established in such a way that the present huge 
profits of enormous parasitic army of middlemen shall be 
equitably regulated, this price naturally will be not only profit- 
able to both — producer and consumer — but also relatively 
lower than the old competitive one. 

As the modern competitive system of agricultural industry 
is an international one in its foundation and its character, 
the new cooperative system of the industry, in order to elimi- 
nate and entirely supplant the former, necessarily and in- 
evitably must be an international one also. It is self-evident 



228 THE THIRD POWER 

that in order to possess a sufficient knowledge of the con- 
dition of markets — local and national as well as international 
ones — and to obtain timely information ot the prices, fixed 
for each of them by the said international agreements, 
the farmers of the civilized world must have an inter- 
national organization. Of course the price of any prod- 
uct on local and national markets will be a price established 
by international agreements of its producers mentioned above 
for international markets, with costs of transportation de- 
ducted therefrom. It does not require of any argument that 
in modern social condition of humanity divided in different 
political nations, which live under different political systems, 
speak different languages, have different laws regulating com- 
merce and industry and possess different commercial cus- 
toms and usages, national organizations of agricultural pro- 
ducers shall be established at first. Such establishment of 
national organizations of agricultural producers in all produc- 
ing, and especially surplus producing countries, is of course, 
a necessary prerequisite of creation of an international agri- 
cultural organization embracing all the agriculturists of the 
civilized world. There are existing at present, some agri- 
cultural organizations in different countries of the old, as 
well as of the new world, but all these organizations are 
merely local in their character or, if more than local in their 
scope, then limited just to a certain branch of agricultural 
production, such as grain growing, cattle raising, truck farm- 
ing, etc. Gradual fusion of all these local and special organi- 
zations of agriculturists of each producing country in a 
single agricultural organization of broadest national scope is 
just the question of time. Though agriculture in its modern 
stage is but a general name for a large number of more or 
less different industries, all of these industries have closest 
connection with the soil and are therefore considerably inter- 
dependent. Moreover, many farmers in all civilized countries 
produce many different agricultural products at the same 
time and not only resort quite often to crop-rotation of more 
than three fields, but even turn their energies from one branch 
of agriculture to another of quite different nature, as from 
crop raising to cattle breeding, from market gardening to 



INTERNATIONAL CONSOLIDATION 229 

bee farming, etc. Therefore, all these local and special agri- 
cultural organizations of different producing countries will 
naturally become united in national agricultural organizations, 
which thus will represent all agricultural interests of each 
producing country. For the same reasons the fusion of all 
these national agricultural organizations of all the civilized 
countries of the world in one international agricultural organ- 
ization in the course of time will be, not only natural, but 
inevitable. This international agricultural organization, which 
shall embrace all agricultural producers of the civilized world, 
will be the very representative of all agricultural interests of 
the globe, which shall name the prices of all agricultural prod- 
ucts on the international markets. 

Of course, the agricultural millennium, when every farmer 
of every civilized country would belong to its national agri- 
cultural organization and through the latter to the interna- 
tional agricultural organization, which, through its repre- 
sentatives, shall name the prices for all agricultural products, 
is far off. However, in order to raise the miserable income of 
the farmer in all civilized countries and thus ameliorate his 
present pitiful condition it is not necessary at all to wait so 
long. As in division and organization of political forces of 
every civilized country a comparatively small body of men 
holds usually the balance of political power and thereby keeps 
political destinies of the country in their hands, in the same 
manner among many economic factors and forces, which 
create prices for all agricultural products in every civilized 
country, a comparatively small body of agricultural producers 
holds the balance of economic power to influence and es- 
tablish these prices and thus keeps economic destinies of the 
country in their hands. This is a relatively small body of 
agricultural producers, which are able to hold their products, 
representing the temporary surpluses as under the old system, 
for a better market. This is an indisputable fact that such a 
body exists in every producing country. Here undoubtedly 
lies the key for the preliminary solution of the most tremen- 
dous economic problem of the age, called the amelioration 
of the condition of the farmer. It is apparent that thus far 
this is the only key. If in every producing country, nay, in 



230 THE THIRD POWER 

every surplus producing country, only a part of the farmers, 
which are able to hold their produce for a better market, 
could be united in national organizations, or have the exist- 
ing local and special agricultural organizations united into 
the national ones along the lines of modern, intelligent, scien- 
tific marketing, the modern agricultural problem would be 
already almost solved. As soon as so frequent temporary 
over-supply of agricultural markets, inevitably caused by the 
existing antiquated, blind and vicious system of marketing 
of agricultural produce, by the new system of intelligent and 
concerted marketing, even partially applied, will be eliminated 
and made impossible, the amelioration of the condition of the 
farmer will be already almost attained. The fusion of the 
said agricultural organizations of this new type of just a 
few surplus producing countries, or even just simply their in- 
telligent and concerted action on the international markets 
for agricultural products, would be already a long step toward 
a final, stable and permanent solution of the tremendous 
agricultural problem of the age. 

As the evolution of modern society is steadily and invaria- 
bly tending toward the substitution of the new cooperative 
system in all industries for the old competitive one, and agri- 
culture, as we have shown already before, makes no excep- 
tion of this general law of modern and social and economic 
evolution, it would be abnormal and very strange indeed, if 
even in such a foremost agricultural country as the United 
States there would not appear some men, which are able to 
understand the spirit of the time and to grasp the modern 
agricultural situation. Most fortunately for the American 
farmer as well as for the farmers of all the civilized coun- 
tries, the initiative in such a great movement, emanating from 
the spirit of the times, is already taken and exactly in this 
country. 

The American Society of Equity of North America, first na- 
tional organization of the American farmers in proper meaning 
of this word, was organized in Indianapolis, Ind., last De- 
cember and has already over 60,000 members in all parts of the 
country. The chief and paramount object of the American So- 
ciety of Equity is to obtain profitable prices for all farm prod- 



INTERNATIONAL CONSOLIDATION 231 

ucts, including grain, fruit, vegetables, stock, cotton, wool, etc., 
by introducing and establishing of modern methods of mar- 
keting of all agricultural products. As competitive system of 
modern agricultural production and distribution embraces all 
the countries, producing national surpluses of each agricul- 
tural product, in their grand total composing an international 
marketable surplus of the same, the chief and paramount ob- 
ject of the American Society of Equity may not be fully ac- 
complished without the cooperation of farmers of all other 
surplus producing countries. Thus, to the cooperation of the 
American farmers in marketing their produce, which con- 
stitutes the basis of the American Society of Equity, the 
cooperation of the farmers of all other surplus producing 
countries in the same direction should be added. Fully realiz- 
ing this fundamental principle of its activity and this neces- 
sary condition to insure the success of the latter, the Amer- 
ican Society of Equity, first time in the history of the United 
States, has made arrangements for the establishment of 
similar societies in all leading surplus producing countries. 
These preparatory arrangements met with universal approval 
and support of prominent agriculturists as well as of states- 
men of leading European countries. This shows quite de- 
cisively that if in this hour of extreme peril the American 
farmers would become aroused to exigencies of the situation, 
and would be prompt enough to join the ranks of their 
national organization in proper meaning of the word, which 
represents, undoubtedly, the embryo of the first and most 
powerful international agricultural organization of the world, 
they will become, very soon, powerful enough to drive the 
economic anarchy, so strenuously and so harmoniously de- 
fended and supported by capitalistic as well as the anarchistic 
press of the country, out of economic and commercial sys- 
tem of the United States. 

Great movements are not born to die in infancy. When the 
spirit of the times finds its expression in social evolution and 
becomes incarnated into social organizations they are des- 
tined to growth and development. Therefore, the organiza- 
tion of the societies of equity in leading agricultural coun- 
tries of the world is just the question of the time. Meanwhile 



232 THE THIRD POWER 

the American Society of Equity of North America would natu- 
rally and inevitably assume at present all the work toward the 
real amelioration of the condition of the farmer all the world 
over and promotion of only, means of his salvation. Honor 
to the country where such a grand movement emanates from, 
honor to the men, which became incarnation of the spirit of 
the times. Thus, reversing the old, antiquated saying, which 
from beginning of the times was always a lie as to the social 
world, we will exclaim: "ex occidente lux!" 

Agriculture is the foundation of all the industries of all the 
countries, and the farmers constitute the most numerous social 
and economic class in the world. Therefore, as soon as the 
societies of equity will have been established in leading agri- 
cultural countries of the globe, even only in surplus produc- 
ing countries and will have taken a concerted action toward 
the introduction of the cooperative system into distribution 
of agricultural products, industrial slaughter and economic 
anarchy will cease, and industrial peace will come at last down 
to the earth. 

Then, and then only, the long fight of man with man will be 
sunk in a cooperation of all mankind in a common effort to 
gain from Mother Nature all possible blessings for the benefit 
of all. 

As in this short sketch, on the subject of the most compli- 
cated nature and the most tremendous importance, we have 
entered an entirely new field of social and economic thought, 
and had no single beaten path to follow, we earnestly hope 
that our errors and shortcomings will be leniently overlooked 
by our readers. 



THIRD PART 



233 




The emblem of the American Society of Equity is symbolical of Price, being 
on an equality with Production and Consumption. 



234 



THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF EQUITY. 

A Plan for Cooperation by Farmers to Secure Profitable 
Prices for all Farm Products. 

"Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take 
for granted, but to weigh and consider." — Bacon. 

The machine must not belittle the engine that drives it, nor 
the engine the steam that propels it. Oftentimes as people 
look at the machines and note the great work they are doing, 
they do not think of the steam away back, which makes the 
machine useful. The farmer furnishes the steam for all the 
business in the country. He sows, he tills, he harvests, but 
if he would stop there the business of the country would be 
crippled. He must market, when all the machinery starts. 
The products of the farm flow like life blood through all the 
arteries of trade and give life to the whole body. 

The farmer creates most of the wealth. Surely what he 
creates makes all wealth possible. He feeds them all and 
clothes them all; and he can starve them all. Yet he has, in 
the past, been the most helpless and dependent of all. The 
people who create wealth should enjoy many of its blessings. 

Farmers are doing many things now because it has been 
the custom in the past. Merchants and manufacturers did 
the same way a few years ago, but they are changing their 
methods. The farmer may be the last one to get out of the 
rut, but the time has arrived for action. Progress, improve- 
ment, new methods, benefit farmers as well as other classes 
of business men. 

The cost to produce a bushel of grain one year is about 
the same as another, yet one year it may bring the producer 
fifty cents a bushel or less and another one dollar or more. 
Who can make any definite calculations on such an uncertain 
basis as this? Here is the secret of lack of improvements 

235 



236 THE THIRD POWER 

on many farms. The owner is afraid to undertake improve- 
ments for fear prices will be down and he can not pay for 
them. 

The consumption of the various staple farm products is 
quite uniform year after year, whether the producer receives 
a fair return or not. The family who eat their loaf of bread, 
a pie, a cake, etc., daily when wheat is worth sixty-five cents 
a bushel, would eat the loaf of bread, the pie, the cake, etc., 
just the same if wheat was worth one dollar per bushel. A 
profitable — equitable — price will not curtail consumption. 

Profitable prices do not necessarily mean high prices. Some 
farm products are high enough now, but this is the time to 
act and keep them profitable. Don't be deceived by a false 
feeling of security. Conditions may easily work around to 
fifteen-cent oats, twenty-cent corn and fifty-cent wheat. A 
fair, profitable price is what we want. No hardships imposed, 
but benefits bestowed on every man, woman and child. 

We believe everybody will agree with us that land is the 
primary source of all wealth. Therefore the owners of the 
land have it in their power to direct the affairs of the world. 
A great thing to contemplate. 

We believe there is one source of great danger to the pros- 
perity of the country, and it lies in the uncertainties surround- 
ing agriculture. No business may be considered healthy that 
yields such great profits as to induce extravagance, or such 
small profits as result in hardships; and particularly an ele- 
ment of uncertainty about any business is very deplorable. 

It may be claimed that a very large number of farmers and 
producers can not be held in line to effectually control prices. 
We believe there are enough intelligent and sensible agri- 
culturists in the country who, seeing the enormous benefits 
resulting from this plan, will not refuse to market conserva- 
tively, and thus exert the desired influence to control prices. 
The trouble, heretofore, has been that farmers have never yet 
realized the power they hold, nor has there been a plan or 
society through which they could cooperate for such great 
financial benefits. 

To illustrate the relation of the farmer with the balance 
of the people: Go into any home in Indianapolis or any 



AMERICAN SOCIETY OF EQUITY 237 

other town or city and inquire how long the family could live 
without replenishing their food supply. The answer would be 
"we must buy to-morrow." Go to the grocery store and ask 
the same question and to the wholesale or commission houses, 
and they will tell you that, should the farmers stop marketing 
for a single day there would be hardships; for a week actual 
distress would be experienced. The same illustration can be 
applied to our clothing, which is made from the farmer's wool, 
cotton, etc. Where is there an intelligent man who is so 
dead to his own interests that he would not take legitimate 
advantage of such genuine necessity to secure his just rights 
and protect his own family from hardships? The producers 
of our food are under no legal or moral obligation to feed the 
world at an unfairly low price. 

With things so much desired as the food we eat and the 
clothes we wear, the rule should be for the consumer to seek 
them — because he must have them — rather than for the pro- 
ducer to force or dump them on him. 

Stop, good farmer, and consider what possibilities open 
up at this viewpoint. There are no other commodities in the 
world so desired as yours, in fact they are absolutely neces- 
sary for the comfort and existence of human and animal life. 
In your business you have all possibilities of extortion, yet 
the farmers can be trusted to feed the world at fair prices, 
even when cooperating on this plan, where equity rules. 

This plan of cooperation contemplates a society or organi- 
zation. It is called the American Society of Equity. (There 
may be a Russian Society of Equity, a German Society of 
Equity, etc., if necessary, but, as America is the great surplus 
nation, prices may be made here which will govern over the 
world.) 

In support of the suggested name, "American Society of 
Equity," We will give Webster's definition, as follows : 

"Equity — Equality of rights; natural justice of rights; the 
giving or desiring to give to each man his due, according to 
reason and the law of God to man; fairness in determination 
of conflicting claims ; impartiality." 

"Equity is synonymous with or equal to justice, rectitude. 
(See below.) 

"Justice — The quality of being just, conformity to the prin- 



238 THE THIRD POWER 

ciples of righteousness and rectitude in all things, strict per- 
formance of moral obligations, practical conformity to human 
or divine law; integrity in the dealings of men with each 
other ; rectitude ; equity ; uprightness. 

"Conformity to truth and realty in expressing opinions and 
in conduct; fair representation of facts respecting merit or 
demerit ; honesty ; fidelity ; impartiality ; as : 

"The rendering to everyone his due or right; just treatment, 
requital of desert; merited reward or punishment; that which 
is due to one's conduct or motives. 

"Agreeableness to right, equity; justness; as the justness of 
a claim. 

"Equity and justice are synonymous with law; right; recti- 
tude; honesty; integrity; uprightness; fairness and impar- 
tiality. 

"Justice and equity are the same; but human laws, though 
designed to secure justice, are of necessity imperfect, and 
hence what is strictly legal is at times far from being equitable 
or just. 

"Justice, Rectitude — Rectitude, in its widest sense, is one of 
the most comprehensive words in our language, denoting 
absolute conformity to the rule of right in principle and 
practice." 

The name, American Society of Equity, will always indi- 
cate the object of this society. We can not offer any more com- 
prehensive explanation than contained in the word "equity" 
itself. Equity given and equity received will be the guiding 
principle of this association. 



THE PLAN OF THE AMERICAN 
SOCIETY OF EQUITY. 

The headquarters is at Indianapolis, Ind., and is called the 
National Union. Branches called Local Unions will be formed 
all over the country, in every township as frequently as nec- 
essary, to accommodate every farmer. They may be in every 
school district. It is not necessary for a member to belong 
to a local union, but it is recommended where ten or more 
members can join together and where they can have a meet- 
ing place. The plan of the American Society of Equity is so 
flexible, however, that a member, no matter where situated, 
can cooperate for all general benefits, with other members, 
without belonging to a local union. An official paper con- 
taining all advice, is the key to cooperation and goes direct to 
the farm. This is the only farmers' society in which members 
can get the full benefits of national cooperation without be- 
longing to a local lodge or union, and without attending the 
meetings. 

The affairs of the society are regulated by a board of seven 
or more directors. These directors will be experts on various 
lines of farm products. To illustrate, there will be a director 
representing each of the following and all other important 
crops: Wheat, corn, oats, cotton, beef, pork, poultry, dairy, 
tobacco, fruit, etc. The directors may be selected by members 
interested in the particular crops, or appointed by the officers 
of the society. 

The key to the workings of the society will be the official 
paper. This will go to every member. At present it is pub- 
lished twice a month, as soon as the society is sufficiently de- 
veloped it will be printed four times a month. Through the 
official paper the National Union — officers, directors and editors 
— will speak to all the members, giving information and ad- 

239 



240 THE THIRD POWER 

vice, so that all may have the same information and be in a 
position to act as one man, or cooperate, as well as if they were 
all in one community, and could be seen individually. The 
National Union will be the head or clearing house for the en- 
tire agricultural business.. 

A very important part of the plan of the American Society 
of Equity is the crop reporting system. Each member will be 
a crop reporter. Either direct, or through his local union 
secretary, on blanks furnished by the National Union. This 
will be the most complete and most reliable crop reporting 
system ever undertaken or accomplished, and will afford re- 
liable information instead of unreliable reports, as have been 
given to the public in the past. The crop reporting will also 
be carried to foreign countries which produce or consume 
sufficient to make them factors in this great problem. 

With reliable information about crop yields and the known 
consumption of any commodity, the board of directors will 
decide what is an equitable value for each crop as it is pro- 
duced, and recommend members to ask that price, and not 
sell for less. This will be called the minimum (lowest) price. 
If members will quit selling the moment the market will not 
take any more supplies at the minimum price, prices will be 
maintained, the demand will be supplied regularly as it ap- 
pears, no over supply, surplus or glut will occur on the mar- 
kets, and farmers, dealers, millers and consumers will be 
benefited, to say nothing of the relief from uncertainties and 
fear of loss attending the old system. 

Remember, it will not be necessary for each person to be 
told when to sell any crop. The plan contemplates that each 
owner of produce, wherever situated, shall supply the markets 
through the regular channels with all they will take at the 
minimum price, and stop selling the moment the buyers 
won't take more. There need be no fear that buyers will be 
out of the market long, because the world must have your 
goods all the time. They can not do without a month, nor 
week, nor even a day. The price can be made and maintained 
as soon as this society has a million members. Then other 
millions will ask the price also. 

We expect, under the new system, that speculation in farm 



THE PLAN 241 

products will be at an end, but should the speculators choose 
to send the prices above the fair minimum price recommended 
by the society, members and non-members can of course ac- 
cept them. It is the hope of the society that they can never 
bear prices below the equitable price named. 

When a value is placed on a crop of grain, cotton, pork, 
beef, etc., it would be expected to control until the next 
crop year, unless very material changes occurred to affect 
consumption, or future crop prospects warrant a revision. 
To prevent too liberal marketing at the start an advance will 
be made on each staple article each month it is held, thus 
justifying part of the producers in holding their crops. This 
advance will be for protection only, but if there is a tendency 
to market too much it can be increased so as to make it 
profitable to hold back. 

The frequent fluctuations of the market (many times a 
day) are not in the interest of the farmers, but for the specu- 
lators and gamblers. Do farmers profit by these fluctuations? 
Certainly not. But they could make many improvements, 
provide many comforts for their families, or indulge in many 
pleasures, if they knew the wheat in their granaries was worth 
not less than eighty-five cents or one dollar a bushel, the same 
in September, January and April, and the same way with other 
crops. 

A plan such as this is the only practical one for the farm- 
ers. Manufacturers may form trusts and partnerships and be 
bound by ironclad agreements, but with the great agricultural 
industry any enormous concentration of capital to control 
prices would prove an incentive to unusual production, an 
inducement to hold crops and a desire to obtain fictitious 
values when the plan would fail. With our plan, where price 
is based entirely on merit, an unusually large world's crop, 
whether from increased acreage, increased yield per acre or 
accumulations in the hands of producers or holders, means 
lower prices in the future. This fear of lower prices will of it- 
self be sufficient incentive to keep the crops moving into con- 
sumption. The safety-valve will be reliable information placed 
before them, a fair minimum price and the intelligence and 
common sense of a fair portion of the American farmers. Array 



242 THE THIRD POWER „ 

on our side the intelligent farmers who are amenable to facts 
and reason and the results are accomplished. The balance of 
the farmers, at any rate, are the stubborn, ignorant portion 
who are either driven or led, and are not sufficient to effect the 
general results. 

We know, with a profitable price obtainable, the temptation 
to hold will not be so great, and we predict crops will be 
marketed closer during the year and the consumption will be 
greater of every staple product. Also, with profitable prices 
for each crop the inducement will not be present to put out 
an exceedingly large acreage of any one crop, which has been 
one of the great faults of farmers in the past. 

We have had some experience with human nature, and we 
believe enough producers can and will demand the minimum 
(lowest allowable) price to make the workings of the plan 
definite and reliable. As to controlling production this feature 
will take care of itself. Consumption has overtaken produc- 
tion in all important lines, while with a profitable price as- 
sured, each producer will not attempt to put out a whole 
township as he oftentimes attempts when prices are low, in 
order to "make both ends meet." 

Manufacturing and mercantile enterprises are not conducted 
by chance. Why should farming be an exception? It need 
not be. We appeal to every producer of crops to consider 
this matter very carefully and decide in the future to do 
business on business principles. 

The selling of farm products in the past has always been 
a guessing match. Guessing is good enough if it hits, but a 
certainty is several thousand per cent, better. With profit- 
able prices made on each crop, farmers can put up elevators, 
warehouses or granaries to hold their products, or build co- 
operative cold storage plants to hold their fruit, if necessary. 
Did you ever think of it? The farmer may be the greatest 
monopolist of them all. To illustrate: He can take the 
rawest kind of material (plant food), put it in his land and 
manufacture through his plants and animals the very highest 
finished products, such as meat, butter, eggs, fruit, etc., and 
sell them to the consumer at the highest possible price. There 
need be no person to share profits with him if he lives up to 



THE PLAN 243 

his privileges. The plan of the society, however, is not to inter- 
fere with established business methods as long as the other peo- 
ple will concede to the farmers their rights, but only to put 
farming on a safe, profitable basis and secure for farmers bene- 
fits equaling those realized in other business undertakings. 

With this plan in successful operation it will limit or stop 
all speculation in agricultural products — such as wheat, oats, 
corn, cotton, pork, beef, etc. — by gamblers, who only thrive oC 
uncertainties. 



THE RESULTS OF FARMERS' CO- 
OPERATION BRIEFLY STATED. 



It will increase the value of all farms from 25 to 100 per 
cent. It will make of the farmer a spender of much more 
money for improvements on the farm, for necessaries, luxu- 
ries and education. It means enormous benefits to all people 
engaged in agricultural pursuits, also to merchants, millers, 
grain dealers, manufacturers, professional men, etc. It means 
unprecedented and uninterrupted prosperity for America and 
the civilized world. Uncertainties about prices, over-produc- 
tion or unprofitable prices in any great enterprise like farm- 
ing are constant menaces to the prosperity of a nation. 

The success of this plan means steady, uninterrupted pros- 
perity for farmers. It means that they can make many im- 
provements that otherwise they can not. It means substantial 
buildings, with many comforts for the farmers' families and 
stock that may never be enjoyed under the old order of things. 
Having a certain profit from their products, they will spend 
it freely, and every industry in the country will be benefited, 
thus benefiting every man, woman and child. There can be 
no mistake about this prediction. 

The success of this plan also means the control of the 
markets of the world by the farmers ; and they can be trusted 
to feed the world at fair prices. But should the fair prices 
be refused they can starve the world by withholding their 
produce. 

More than this : Remove the uncertainties surrounding any 
business and you make better citizens of those people. They 
will be better morally, mentally and physically. Remove the 
uncertainties of prices for agricultural products and you will 
lessen sickness, poverty, crime and taxation. Our schools 
and colleges will fill up and our poorhouses, asylums, jails 
and penitentiaries will have fewer inmates. Give us equity 
and you will give us happiness. The success of this plan 
will cause the farmer to love his business, to care for his farm, 
to raise better crops and larger crops. He will be encouraged 
to irrigate and to do a thousand things that now he can not 
do. 

The success of this plan, where equity rules, will obliterate 
that feeling, "Do him or he will do me." On the contrary, 

244 



RESULTS OF FARMERS' COOPERATION 245 

when you get your just reward, you can love your neighbor 
as yourself. The churches will be filled because humanity 
will have much to be thankful for, and the saloon will be 
empty because of no sorrows to drown. Uncertainty of price 
does not stimulate demand and consumption. Remove the 
uncertainty of prices of farm products, give the producer a 
fair profit and the middleman a fair margin and there will 
be a constant stream flowing to the consumer, causing greater 
consumption and benefiting every person. 

The plan is simplicity itself, as already explained. Give 
us a fair proportion of the farmers willing to ask a fair price, 
based on production and consumption and the result will be 
accomplished. Give us unity in cooperation among the farm- 
ers, if that is possible, in the carrying out of this plan, and no 
trust ever dreamed of would represent such a power of capi- 
tal as would be behind the American Society of Equity. 

The farmers are strong enough and rich enough now to take 
this important step. Prompt action will prevent prices from 
slipping down to an unprofitable basis, with all the hardships 
attendant on a condition of poverty and bankruptcy that large 
crops and unprofitable prices will bring sooner or later. 
Profitable prices for good crops is what we must have, then the 
benefits will be evenly and generally distributed, and perma- 
nent national prosperity guaranteed. 

Note — Any attempt to control prices through a large fund 
as recently proposed by several companies will fail because it 
will encourage producers to increase production and to hold 
their crops, which will result in an unwieldy surplus. If the 
fund is actually used to buy and hold the crops, it will cer- 
tainly result like the Leiter deal — in an inability to find buyers, 
who will take them at a still higher price, when they must be 
disposed of. Neither individual, corporate, nor national aid 
along this line can be effective, unless the surplus that is bound 
to result will be destroyed. 



THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF N. A. 



ARTICLES OF INCORPORATION. 

We, the undersigned citizens of the United States of Amer- 
ica, hereby associate ourselves together as a society, herein- 
after named, under and pursuant to the statutes of the state 
of Indiana, same being an act of the general assembly of the 
state of Indiana, approved March 6th, 1899, and being an act 
entitled "An Act for the Incorporation of Societies, not for 
pecuniary profit, etc.," by the following articles: 

Article I. Name. 

The name of this society shall be "The American Society 
of Equity of North America. 

Article II. Stock. 

This society has no capital stock and is not organized for 
pecuniary profit. 

Article III. Objects. 

1. To obtain profitable prices for all products of the farm, 
garden and orchard. 

2. To build and maintain elevators, warehouses and cold 
storage houses in principal market cities or in all localities 
where necessary, so that farm produce may be held for an 
advantageous price, instead of passing into the hands of 
middlemen or trusts. 

3. To secure equitable rates of transportation. 

4. To secure legislation in the interest of agriculture. 

5. To open up new markets and enlarge old ones. 

6. To secure new seeds, grain, fruit, vegetables, etc., from 
foreign countries, with the view of improving the present 
crops and giving a greater diversity. 

7. To report crops in this and foreign countries, so that 
farmers may operate intelligently in planting and marketing. 

8. To establish institutions of learning, so that farmers and 
their sons and daughters may be educated in scientific and in- 
tensive farming and for the general advancement of agri- 
culture. 

9. To improve our highways. 

246 



ARTICLES OF INCORPORATION 247 

10. To irrigate our land. 

11. To prevent adulteration of food and marketing the same. 

12. To own real estate, build, maintain and operate ele- 
vators, storage houses, stock yards, railroads, ship lines, etc., 
as may be deemed wise and expedient. 

13. To promote social intercourse. 

14. To settle disputes without recourse to law. 

15. To borrow and loan money and do a banking business. 

16. To do an insurance business, both life and fire. 

17. To establish similar societies in foreign countries. 

Article IV. Incorporators. 

J. A. Everitt, Eli A. Hirshfield, 

Mark P. Turner, A. D. McKinney, 

H. W. Miller, Sid Conger. 

Article V. Place of Business. 

The principal offices of this society shall be located and 
maintained in Indianapolis, Marion county, Indiana, with 
such branch societies elsewhere as may be necessary to carry 
out the purposes of the society. 

Article VI. Term of Existence. 

This society shall have and is incorporated for a term of 
fifty (50) years' existence. 

Article VII. Seal. 

The likeness and imprint of the official seal of this society 
is hereto attached. (See page 233.) The seal is the regular em- 
blem of the society, with the word "Seal" added. 

Article VIII. Election. 

The officers of this society shall be a President, Vice-Presi- 
dent, Treasurer, Secretary, Organizer, General Counsel and 
Board of Directors, and each and all shall be elected by popu- 
lar vote of the members at the annual meeting of the society 
at Indianapolis, Marion county, Indiana, on the first Monday 
in October of each year. Members who can not be present 
can vote by proxy through their Secretary. (The date of the 
annual meeting for 1903 has been changed to the first Monday 
in December.) 

Article IX. Management. 

The -business and prudential concerns of this society shall 
be managed by a Board of Directors, consisting of seven or 
more persons, including the President, Secretary and Treas- 
urer; who shall be members of this society in good standing. 



248 THE THIRD POWER 

The Board of Directors and officers for the first year, and 
until a Board of Directors and officers are elected at the an- 
nual meeting, are as follows: 

Officers. 

J. A. Everitt, President. 

Seldon R. Williams, Vice-President. 

Eli A. Hirshfield, Vice-President. 

A. D. McKinney, Secretary. 

H. W. Miller, Treasurer. 

Mark P. Turner, General Counsel. 

Sid Conger, General Organizer. 

Fremont Goodwine, Advisory Counsel. 

, Statistician. 

Board of Directors. 

J. A. Everitt, A. D. McKinney, 

Hiram Miller, Sid Conger, 

Mark P. Turner, Eli A. Hirshfield. 
Fremont Goodwine, 

State of Indiana, Marion County, ss : 

Before me, Kathryn C. Tilly, a Notary Public, in and for 
said county and state, appeared J. A. Everitt, Eli A. Hirsh- 
field, Mark P. Turner, A. D. McKinney, H. W. Miller and 
Sid Conger, the above named incorporators, and each for him- 
self duly acknowledged the execution of the above and fore- 
going articles of incorporation to be his voluntary act and 
deed for the purposes and uses therein set out. 

Witness my hand and notarial seal this 17th day of Decem- 
ber, 1902. 

(Seal.) Kathryn C. Tilly, 

Notary Public. 

My commission expires August 21, 1906. 



CONSTITUTION AND BY-LAWS. 

GOVERNING LOCAL UNIONS OF THE AMERICAN 
SOCIETY OF EQUITY OF N. A. 

Article I. Name. 

This union shall be known as the Union of 

the American Society of Equity of (To save 

confusion all unions must bear the postoffice name, and not 
more than one union bear the same name, except where the 
territory is too large for one union others may be formed and 
must be designated by numbers, as Riverside Union No. 2 or 
No. 3, etc.) 

Article II. Membership. 

Any person, of good moral character, male or female, of the 
age of fourteen years or over, who is engaged in any branch 
of agricultural work; also all persons not engaged in agri- 
cultural work but a friend of agriculture may become members 
of the American Society of Equity by paying the required fees. 

Proviso 1. A person may be a member of the National 
Union and enjoy all the general benefits of the society until 
there are a sufficient number of members to form a local 
union, but no person shall be a member of a local union with- 
out supporting the National Union. All members of the Na- 
tional Union are required to affiliate themselves with a local 
union as soon as one is organized in the neighborhood, and in 
this way carry out the complete plan of the society. 

Proviso 2. Any young persons between the ages of 14 
and 21, who are children of members of the society, and wives 
of members, also old men and women (75 years or older), 
whose life has mainly been spent on a farm, may become com- 
plimentary members, without any membership fee or dues. The 
object being to encourage the youths to start aright and to 
smooth the pathways of the old people who have become aged 
in the service of agriculture. Such members must be indicated 
when reports are sent in. 

249 



250 THE THIRD POWER 

Proviso 3. In the case of a woman who is actively engaged 
in agricultural pursuits on her own account, membership must 
be granted her on exactly the same terms as to men. In case 
of death of the husband, his membership will fall to his suc- 
cessor, be this widow or son, and such cases must be reported 
to the National Union by the secretary. 

Proviso 4. No person can hold membership in more than 
one local union at the same time. 

Article III. Form of Application. 

Application for membership should be made in the following 
form, to- wit: 

"I, James M. Goodwill, whose postoffice is , in the 

county of , state of , desire to become a 

member of the American Society of Equity, and hereby make 

application for membership in the union of the 

A. S. of E. 

"I fully appreciate the disadvantages of the old business sys- 
tem of farming, and I also appreciate the great advantages 
that must result to the agricultural class if they will in the 
future cooperate on the plan of the American Society ot 
Equity. Now, therefore, I, being desirous of securing for my- 
self, my family, and my brethren and sisters who are labor- 
ing in the same work, all the benefits that will result from co- 
operation, do hereby agree to follow the reasonable advice of 
the society regarding crops, prices, etc. 

"Also recognizing the great benefits that have accrued to 
other lines of business through cooperation, and admitting 
that equal and greater benefits will result to farmers if they 
will cooperate, I hereby promise to, at every opportunity, in- 
duce others to join the society and cooperate. 

"I hereby subscribe to the by-laws of the society." 

(Signed) 

(Date) 

Article IV. Admission of Members. 

Members may be admitted at any regular meeting by a two- 
thirds vote of the members present, not less than seven mem- 
bers, including officers, to constitute a quorum. 

Article V. Fees. 

The membership fee of the National Union shall be one 
dollar (which also covers the dues for the first year), and 
dues one dollar a year thereafter (or twenty-five cents a 
quarter) ; also, fifty cents additional for the official paper and 



CONSTITUTION AND BY-LAWS 251 

bulletins. They must be paid through the local union, except 
if no local union, they may be forwarded direct to the National 
Union, Indianapolis, Ind. 

Membership fees must accompany the application. 

Dues to the local union will be fixed by that union in each 
case. It will depend on the business they undertake to do. 

The dues to the National Union may be reduced or in- 
creased after the society is in working order, depending on the 
work undertaken, and as experience demonstrates. 

The membership fee, including the official paper, has been 
placed at fifty cents until one million members are secured. 

Article VI. Officers' Salaries and Bonds. 

The officers of a local union shall be a President-Treas- 
urer (the two in one) and a Secretary. It shall be their duty 
to perform such duties as usually fall to such officers. The 
officers may be reasonably paid for their services, such a sum 
as will secure entirely competent men. The benefits to mem- 
bers, if they live up to the privileges, will be so great that no 
hardship need be imposed by the legitimate expenses. The 
rate of compensation shall be fixed at the annual session. 

All officers holding responsible positions should execute a 
safe bond. 

Article VII. Election of Officers. 

The officers shall be elected by vote of the members ; first 
the President-Treasurer, then the Secretary. The majority 
electing. The election shall be held on the third Saturday in 
September of each year, or on such a date as the local union 
may select. Officers shall be elected for one year, and serve 
until their successors are elected. 

Article VIII. Vacancies. 

In the case of a permanent vacancy of any office for any 
reason, a successor must be chosen, temporarily, at the next 
meeting following the vacancy, and permanently at the follow- 
ing meeting. In case of a temporary vacancy, a temporary 
officer may be appointed by the remaining officer. 

Article IX. Organization of Local Union. 

Ten or more persons eligible to membership may organize 
a local union. 

Article X. Appeals. 

Matters affecting the union, and that are not covered by the 
existing by-laws, may be appealed to the National Union. 
Such an appeal must be made in writing with the evidence. 



252 THE THIRD POWER 

Article XL Charter. 

The fee for a charter for a local union shall be one dollar, 
payable to the National Union. 

Article XII. Seal. 

The seal of a local union shall be the name of the society, 
with the town, state and number and the word seal added. 
The cost will be charged to the local union. 

Article XIII. Amendments. 

These by-laws may be amended at any regular meeting, 
providing the amendment is voted favorably. It is expected 
that each local union will enact such additional laws and 
change these laws, as will best serve the condition existing in 
their district. 

Article XIV. Time of Meeting. 

The regular meeting of this union shall be held on the 

day of each (week or month), at o'clock. 

Seven members shall constitute a quorum. (Where the union 
owns its meeting place it is recommended that the room be 
kept open constantly for the use of the members.) 

Article XV. Settlement of Disputes. 

Litigation is to be discouraged, and in no case shall mem- 
oers of the American Society of Equity enter into litigation at 
law with each other, or a member against a non-member, 
until the matter is presented to the union and its good offices 
used to settle the difference, except when delay will be detri- 
mental. 

Any member violating this provision shall be liable to ex- 
pulsion. 

Article XVI. Withdrawals. 

Any person may withdraw by making his desire known pre- 
vious to calling to order of any meeting and being present at 
the meeting, when the demand will be considered in the regu- 
lar order of business. Unless the applicant is persuaded to 
continue a member, permission to withdraw shall be given by 
the President. All dues are to be paid up to time of with- 
drawal. 

Article XVII. Payment of Money. 

All orders for warrants must be signed by both the Presi- 
dent-Treasurer and the Secretary. 

Article XVIII. Records, Reports, Notices. 
It shall be the duty of the Secretary to keep a record of all 



CONSTITUTION AND BY-LAWS 253 

transactions. The minutes of any meeting must be approved 
at the next meeting and then become matter of permanent 
record. Also, to secure reports on crop conditions, acreage, 
yields, etc., and forward a copy to the National Union as fre- 
quently as twice a month, and more frequently when condi- 
tions out of the ordinary prevail ; also to report all new mem- 
bers, withdrawals, delinquencies, deaths, etc., sending a report 
to the National Union (suitable blanks will be provided for 
these purposes), and to do all things as will tend to the build- 
ing up of the society and the advancement of the interests of 
the members. 

Article XIX. Local Conditions. 

In each locality some conditions exist that are peculiar to 
that place alone; therefore, it is expected to amend these by- 
laws to meet the conditions of the particular sections. 

While cooperative buying and the conduct of cooperative 
stores is not deemed necessary when the farmers get profit- 
able prices by cooperative selling, yet cooperation in any line 
or in any direction that will benefit the agricultural classes is 
not prohibited. We simply ask each member to keep in mind 
the motto of his beloved society. "Equity." 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 

Read carefully. There is not a trouble affecting agriculture 
that cooperation will not cure. If all the problems are not 
solved here, it is because no person has brought them forward. 
There is a solution in cooperation for every problem in the ag- 
ricultural book, and for nearly all the other problems of our 
social, political and business life. 



i. Q. Can farmers organize? 

A. They did in the Grange, Alliance, Farmers' Mutual 
Benefit Association and other societies. Therefore, they can 
again, if there is a good reason for it. The reasons are more 
numerous now than ever before. 

2. Q. Can farmers cooperate? 

A. The farming industry is the same all over the country, 
and practically all over the world. Farmers all have their in- 
vestments for one purpose, and all labor to one common pur- 
pose, viz.: to produce the necessaries and comforts of life. 
Laborers, on the contrary — while they all sell their labor for 
wages — are subject to many varied conditions, as found in the 
factories, stores, banks, mines, on the railroads, in cities or 
country, etc. They are also influenced by many interests of 
their employers and frequently attempts are made to prevent 
them from organizing and cooperating; yet they have organ- 
ized and do cooperate, and have secured great benefits from 
such cooperation. If laborers can cooperate for their mutual 
good under such conditions, who dare say that farmers can 
not? No fair person will oppose the farmers' organization on 
the plan proposed by the American Society of Equity. On the 
contrary every person doing a legitimate business will help the 
organization, because it will help him. Farmers are surely as 
intelligent as coal miners and factory employes, and surely 
they can see it is to their great (yes, enormous) interest to co- 
operate for every good thing. Every class of people can co- 
operate except Indians, idiots and the insane — unless we ex- 
cept the farmers. We will see if farmers must be classed with 
the above after giving them a trial on a good plan. 

3. Q. Will farmers hold together and cooperate? 

A. Give them all, or half, or quarter, of the benefits that the 

254 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 255 

A. S. of E. promises, and you can not drive them apart. Ap- 
peal to their self-interest — selfish interests, if you please — and 
they will stick to the thing that makes them money and ele- 
vates their calling. 

4. Q. Does speculation injure farmers? 

A. It certainly does. It is the greatest curse of the country. 
Usually the farmers' crops are sold months before they are 
grown, when, if conditions justify higher prices the speculators 
won't let the price go up until their contracts are filled. The 
boards of trade are the devil's workshops, in which the earn- 
ings of farmers are forged for the benefit of a few individuals 
who become immensely wealthy. 

5. Q. Is not cheap food a blessing to the world? 

A. Cheap food and dear pleasures are not equitable. In 
prosperous times the masses spend money extravagantly for 
pleasures. Why should they not pay good prices for food? 
In fact, low prices to the farmers will speedily put them out 
of the field as consumers, and every business and all working 
people in the country will suffer. 

6. Q. What are the speculative commodities? 

A. Agricultural products, railroad shares and mining stocks. 

7. Q. Why are these selected to speculate in? 
A. Because of the uncertainties attending them. 

8. Q. How can agricultural products be removed from the 
list? 

A. By making prices certain. By fixing a price once a year, 
when the crop is produced, and demanding that price. This is 
equitable, the farmer has as much right to do this as the man- 
ufacturer, the banker, the lawyer, the physician, the gas man, 
the ice man, the union laborer or any other person on earth. 
Besides, the farmer has a better chance to enforce his demands 
than any of the others. His goods are indispensable; the 
others may be done without. 

9. Q. When is the time to organize the farmers? 

A. Now is the time. There are more farmers in an inde- 
pendent condition now than for many years. These are the 
farmers who have good land and raised good crops in the 
short crop years. Short crops make good prices. Big crops 
make low prices. Farmers suffer more from big crops than 
from small crops. This is the time to organize and keep prices 
up. Have you not noticed how the speculators price your 
crops down as soon as crop prospects are good? As soon as 
you raise big crops two years in succession prices will go 
away down. Don't you want good prices for good crops? 
Then the blessings will be equally distributed. Organize now, 
and not when mortgages are plastered all over your homes. 

10. Q. Will farmers' business grow worse? 

A. Lines opposed to the farmers — and they constitute every 



256 THE THIRD POWER 

other industry, profession and consumer in the country — are 
being drawn closer in organization and cooperation. As they 
all get their living from the farm, they will employ the sharp 
practices that the stirring times have developed to beat down 
the farmers' prices to the very lowest level. True, there will 
be seasons of short crops, when prices will stay up, but in 
seasons of large crops there will be absolutely no sustaining 
power to prices of farm products unless the farmers will 
furnish it. I defy any person to show me the man or set of 
men who will protect another man or set of men in trade, who 
will not try to protect himself. The grasping, greedy disposi- 
tion is not the spirit of Christianity, but it is human nature. 
The weak are always oppressed by the strong, the disorganized 
by the organized. There is absolutely no safety or good pros- 
pect in this country for an industry not organized. 

ii. Q. Are there not too many farmers to cooperate? 

A. This is a popular fallacy that sound reasoning will dispel. 
The great number of farmers will be the great element of 
strength in farmers cooperating. All the farmers don't need to 
hold crops at any time, as the markets will take immense quan- 
tities of supplies every day. All that will be required will be 
enough farmers to control that part that goes on the market 
and creates a temporary over supply or surplus. This over 
supply makes the low price on all. Take, for example, the 
year 1901 : all crops except wheat were short ; everything, corn, 
oats, fruit, vegetables, meat, etc., brought high prices. Why? 
Because there was no over supply at any time and the buyers 
were eager to get all that was offered. Now let us see how 
about wheat. It was a large crop. The price ruled low. 
Why? Because growers of wheat fed the market faster than 
it needed it; yet the entire crop was consumed, although it 
was the largest crop the country ever raised. No business can 
maintain prices or control prices that markets a year's supplies 
in a few months. Cooperation is intended to produce the same 
condition that prevails when there is a short crop — i. e., keep 
the stuff back on the farm or in warehouses until the demand 
comes for it. Comparatively a small portion of the producers 
can do this, even though the others won't try. If we have a 

MILLION OR MORE MEMBERS IN THE A. S. OF E., ENOUGH OF 
THEM WILL HOLD THEIR CROPS BACK TO PREVENT THE TEMPO- 
RARY OVER SUPPLY, IN SPITE OF ALL THE WEAK, STUBBORN FARM- 
ERS THAT MAY BE ARRAYED AGAINST THEM. The A. S. of E. 

proposes, however, to make it profitable to hold crops. 

We train ourselves to watch ourselves, 

Until we find at length 
We've made our very weakness 

The pillars of our strength. 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 257 

12. Q. Is the American Society of Equity a good name? 

A. Yes, considering the power of the farmers when cooper- 
ating, it is necessary to have a motto that will influence their 
actions. For instance, the farmers could practice inequity to 
the disadvantage of all other classes if they wanted to. There- 
fore, the originator of the plan of the A. S. of E. selected this 
name as a promise by the farmers that they would do equity 
and a notice to the world that they would expect equity. 
Equity means justice, right, honesty, impartiality. It is the 
basis of moral strength and potent influences. It is the ground 
swell of fraternity, of good fellowship and the essence of 
neighborly kindness. It will make the world better to the ex- 
tent to which it is recognized and practised. No one can hide 
behind it with a plea of ambiguity, as it is one of the most un- 
compromising words in the English language, covering not a 
shade of selfishness, unfairness or one-sidedness. A society 
founded on equity is founded on the solid rock of fair deal- 
ing and righteousness. No better foundation word could be 
found for self-protection or society. 

13. Q. If farmers get profitable prices, will they not over- 
produce ? 

A. Take into consideration the fact that in the last fifty 
years practically all our great western and northwestern states 
were brought into cultivation and immense areas in the older 
states cleared, drained and made productive, yet all the prod- 
ucts have been consumed. There are no more such areas to 
open up. Also, farmers need rest, and their farms need rest 
to recuperate in fertility. Is it not reasonable to suppose, with 
profitable prices, that the farmers will work less and produce 
less? 

14. Q. If a surplus should exist any time, what would be 
done with it? 

A. When farmers control their crops and regulate prices 
they have done a great thing. There are, however, other un- 
certainties connected with farming that they can not control. 
We refer to the weather. Do the best they can, they can not 
control rainfall, frosts, heat or cold; also, insects and blight 
are uncertain factors in the production of crops. These factors 
will make short crops some seasons. If farmers are cooper- 
ating they can easily hold the surplus of good seasons, should 
they exist, over to the short years, thus equalizing supplies and 
prices, and benefiting both producers and consumers. In case 
of perishable products, fruit, vegetables, etc., they can be pre- 
served, canned or manufactured to far better advantage than 
when each farmer is for himself. 

15. Q. How can poor farmers hold their crops to help main- 
tain the minimum prices? 



258 THE THIRD POWER 

A. I. We don't think they will need to hold. 2. But suppose 
they do: under the new system it will be profitable to hold; 
therefore, more will hold than under the old plan. Each addi- 
tional farmer who holds will make a better market for the poor 
farmer who can not hold. 3. A slight increase in price will be 
made each month to offset interest, shrinkage, etc., to those 
farmers who hold. This is not intended to be enough to be 
particularly profitable, but for protection. However, if enough 
don't hold, the monthly advance can be made larger until it is 
profitable to hold, and until the supply dries up enough to 
maintain the minimum price. This will give the poor farmer 
the early market all to himself. 4. With a minimum price es- 
tablished dealers will want to buy all they possibly can. They 
know the price won't be lower, and will be higher (on account 
of the monthly increase in price). We believe there will be buy- 
ers for more grain and staple crops than will be offered. It will 
be the aim of the society to keep the bulk of the crops out of 
the hands of speculators and back on the farms or in farmers' 
warehouses, and feed the markets as they need it. If the 
farmers would sell all their wheat, corn, oats and other grains 
to me now at prevailing prices, and contract all their year's 
output of meat, dairy products, eggs, poultry and fruit to me 
at prevailing prices, I could make a billion dollars profit on the 
deal. Perhaps it would be necessary to destroy some of the 
perishable products, but I would not market a single lot of 
stuff except at a profit. All I would want, is control^ of the 
products, and I would make the market price. This is what 
the A. S. of E. proposes to do, by farmers cooperating. 
5. With profitable prices secured, farmers would take the rest 
cure for themselves and their farms. Thus there would be less 
production and a better chance to maintain prices. 

16. Q. Is the 1903 wheat crop worth a dollar a bushel? 

A. From the producers' standpoint it undoubtedly is and 
will afford a very meager profit at this price. The average of 
this year is only ten to eleven bushels per acre. From the 
consumer's standpoint there is nothing else he can buy of 
equal intrinsic value. From the standpoint of production and 
consumption it is abundantly worth a dollar. All fair people 
will admit our claims, and it is a crying shame that the price 
is arbitrarily withheld from the farmers who have been mar- 
keting at a less price. 

17. Q. Will dollar wheat come? 

A. I predict it will. It will come when the first run is 
over. Harvests ended m September. The world is taking and 
consuming the wheat as fast as it comes to market all over 
the world. Warehouses and elevators are empty. Those farm- 
ers who hold will get their price, after the farmers of the 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 259 

world who have not heard of dollar wheat, or can not hold, 
have marketed. Remember, there is a shortage of wheat for 
the world's needs this year. 

18. Q. Who are eligible to membership in the A. S. of E.? 
A. Farmers (owners and renters) of all descriptions, and 

friends of farmers, with their wives and sons and daughters, 
between 14 and 21 years of age. 

19. Q. Why do you admit merchants, bankers, etc.? 

A. Their's and the farmers' interests are mutual. The suc- 
cess of one class makes it better for other classes. The mer- 
chants want the farmers to organize and get good prices, so 
they can pay good prices for good goods, and not buy the 
nasty cheap goods, as they now oftentimes do. Bankers want 
farmers to organize, because it will add stability of value to 
all property and insure permanent prosperity. The farmer may 
as well take them into their society if they want to come, as 
it will be easier to control them on the inside than to shut 
them out, arouse their antagonism and control them on the 
outside. Besides, most merchants and bankers are farmers 
also; therefore, you could not debar all unless you limit a 
farmer's business to farming. In the A. S. of E. we hope all 
the people in the country and small towns will cooperate to 
the upbuilding of rural America, get more profit for the goods 
in the country and spend the money there. 

20. Q. Is the A. S. of E. a secret society? 

A. No. The farmers don't need to have any secrets from 
anybody else. Where equity is given and received, you don't 
need to hold your meetings behind sealed doors. The farmers 
cooperating will be so strong that they can go boldly before 
the world, make their equitable demands and get justice, or 
take it. 

21. Q. Must a member belong to a local union? 

A. No ; a member anywhere can get the full benefit of na- 
tional cooperation without belonging to a local union. The 
official paper will be the key and guide for action. It will give 
advice regarding markets, crops, prices, etc., so all can act as 
one man. Local unions are particularly for local affairs, social 
features, and assisting each other to hold crops. 

22. Q. Will farmers stick together? 

A. They will when there is something to stick for. In the 
old attempts they did not get enough benefits. What is buy- 
ing at lower prices as compared to selling at fair prices? The 
A. S. of E. is built for benefits, from the ground up. Once 
let farmers realize some of the benefits of cooperation on this 
plan, and no influence on earth can drive them apart. 

23. Q. How are members bound? 

A. There is no binding agreement. It is proposed to make it 



2<5o THE THIRD POWER 

to their interests to belong to the A. S. of E. If, after a fair 
trial, great benefits can not be shown, then farmers can not 
cooperate. It would be useless to bind farmers in an ironclad 
agreement, as many would break the agreement, and then 
they wouuld have disrespect for it. If farmers will hold crops, 
as they do now, for an uncertain advance, will they not market 
conservatively to maintain a profitable price ? 

24. Q. What is the membership fee and dues? 

A. Fifty cents. This also pays for the official paper, badge, 
certificate, all advice and crop reports from the National Union 
and all dues for the first year. Future dues -will be small, as 
the membership will be very large. Membership to his wife is 
free, also to his sons and daughters, between 14 and 21 years. 

25. Q. What is the local union membership fees or dues ? 
A. No membership fee. The dues will be fixed by each local 

union to meet their requirements. There is, however, an or- 
ganization fee. 

26. Q. Will not profitable prices for farmers make higher 
prices for consumers? 

A. No. We expect consumers' prices to- average lower when 
farmers cooperate. At present the middlemen and trusts often 
get more than the farmers. They pile up mountains of profit 
between the two. This will be regulated or cut out entirely if 
they do not deal fairly. 

27. Q. How will the farmers' organization effect labor? 

A. When farmers get profitable prices the labor problem on 
the farm will be solved, as they can then hire the help needed. 
It will make a market for a million or more laborers the year 
around. This movement is the greatest thing for working peo- 
ple that ever was proposed. 

28. Q. How will this movement effect the producer of per- 
ishable products? 

A. Cold storage houses and warehouses will be provided 
where fruit, butter, eggs, vegetables, meat, etc., will be held 
as the producers' property until the market can use them. In 
the case of berries, peaches, etc., the markets will be known 
and supplied to the maximum consumption at good prices, but 
no more. By knowing the needs of all the markets a much 
greater volume of products can be directed to them than in the 
uncertain way as at present, and if an actual surplus exists it 
will be left to spoil at home, or be preserved by canning or 
otherwise. The society will be of enormous benefit to produc- 
ers of perishable crops. 

29. Q. How about meat? Will you advance the price? 

A. Beef is too high to the consumer and too low to the pro- 
ducer. The society will elevate the farmer's price and reduce 
the selling price. Other meat will be put on an equitable basis 
and kept there. 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 261 

30. Q. Can this society regulate the price of potatoes? 

A. Certainly. This is a crop that frequently sells at ruin- 
ously low prices when the production is large. It will be one 
of the easiest to control. When the farmers are organized in 
Maine, New York, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, the 
trick will be done. Consumers can pay fifty cents a bushel for 
potatoes as a minimum price — which should net the grower 
thirty cents to forty cents, when the crop is large — as well as 
anything under. The chances are that the city consumer who 
buys in the small will pay twenty cents a peck if the grower got 
only twenty cents a bushel. This society will prevent such in- 
equalities. The same illustration will apply to apples, only the 
difference is usually greater. 

31. Q. Can you help the tobacco grower who is now at the 
mercy of the tobacco trust? 

A. Most assuredly. If the tobacco districts are organized 
and sell their product through their own representatives on the 
national board of directors, they can absolutely take a good 
profit on their crop before the trust can touch it. It is not 
proposed to dictate to trusts, or put them out of business — 
unless their existence jeopardizes maximum consumption and 
markets — but simply to take the growers' profit first. 

32. Q. Will the minimum (profitable) price limit consump- 
tion? 

A. No. It will rather stimulate trade and increase con- 
sumption. Because it will remove uncertainties. Under the 
old system, if the farmer thought prices too low he would not 
sell. If the buyer thought they were too high he would not 
buy; also, the buyer was always fearful the price would go 
down, therefore he always wanted to buy as low as possible. 
Under the new system certainty will prevail. There will be no 
fear or hesitancy. All will sell and buy as much as the market 
wants, and farm products will go into consumption with 
greater ease and regularity than by the old system. This plan 
has beauties and advantages that can not be fully realized or 
appreciated until it is in working order. 

S3. Q. How can farmers store their produce? 

A. Several local unions can join together and erect neces- 
sary warehouses, cold storage houses or elevators. These will 
be under their direct control. There will be another class 
owned by the society in principal cities, where produce can be 
shipped and stored for account of the owner. Warehouse re- 
ceipts will be issued on grain and produce, which can be used 
as credit at banks to secure money. Non-perishable goods 
should be held on the farm as much as possible. A good 
granary is as good as an elevator, while no storage is charged. 

34. Q. How will you regulate railroad rates, stock yard 
charges, grain inspections, grading, etc.? 



262 THE THIRD POWER 

A. Let it be understood that the farmers in this society 
don't intend to control anybody or anything but their own 
business and prices. Heretofore the farmers were taught that 
to get justice they must fight everybody and everything on 
earth. It is a grevious mistake. All the farmers need to do is 
to put the price on their goods at their market town and 
get their price there. They don't need to care what the rail- 
roads or stockyards charge, unless they want to protect the 
consumer, and this they can do when they are strong and 
powerful through organization. Don't let anybody make you 
believe that you must fight anybody when you have the goods 
everybody else must have to live on and for their comfort. 

35. Q. Is it a fact that the larger the crop the lower the 
price? 

A. Invariably, and there are many cases where the smallest 
and nastiest crops the country ever raised brought the most 
money to the farmers, and the largest, finest crops the least 
money. Hundreds of times farmers see their efforts crowned 
with success in producing a crop, only to meet crushing disap- 
pointment when marketing. 

36. Q. Will you not need to control production as well as 
supply ? 

A. No. The world will take all the food crops this country 
will grow, and pay a fair price for them if the farmers will 
regulate the marketing so as to prevent over supply at any 
time. Consumption is ahead of production now, and we pre- 
dict will increase faster than production, unless our farmers 
get better prices to encourage better farming and larger crops. 

2,7. Q. Do farmers need to market a twelve months' supply 
in a few months? 

A. No. We have referred to this before. Here is the whole 
secret of failure in the past and success for the future. Sup- 
pose a year's supply of coal had to be marketed in three 
months in the summer. The miners would get a very low 
price, the middlemen make a mountain of profit, and the con- 
sumer would pay more than an equitable price. 

38. Q. Will it not be sufficient to have storehouses and get a 
low rate of freight? 

A. Never. What profiteth a farmer if he stores his grain, 
but lets the speculator, trust or middleman price it at last? 
This is not another way to whip the devil around the bush, 
and the devil will catch him coming or going. Storage 
charges, commissions and reduced railroad freight combined 
are not equal to putting a fair price on your own stuff and 
taking your profit first. 

39. Q. Do you think money can be well spent in marketing 
farm products? 

A. Surely. It is a fact that manufacturers and merchants 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 263 

frequently spend as much money in advertising, traveling rep- 
resentatives and in other ways to find a market as the goods 
cost in the first place. Farmers have been spending nothing— 
simply dumping their fine products, to let them take their 
chances on prices, and without any regard to their brother 
farmer's interests. Through cooperation farmers can market 
their goods much cheaper than can any other class, because 
there is a natural demand for them. Others must create a 
demand. 

40. Q. On what does the prosperity of our country depend? 

A. On the farmers. They constitute about half our popula- 
tion. They are also the greatest consumers. Keep them pros- 
perous by always getting good prices, as this society proposes, 
and the country can not have hard times. I am not thoroughly 
acquainted with European countries, but I think the cause of 
their depression of business is with the farmers. The Euro- 
pean farmers are kept down by the competition of this country. 

41. Q. But many of the farmers may not join and thus de- 
feat your plans. 

A. We will first get the million, and then make it imprac- 
ticable for the balance to stay out of the society. For instance, 
we will, first, make it profitable for them to come in ; second, 
union farmers' products will be marketed in distinguishing 
packages and under the A. S. of E. label. These goods will be 
of guaranteed purity and high quality and will be sought after 
and taken first before the non-union farmers' products will be 
taken; also union laborers will buy only the union farmers' 
products, because the society proposes to make a great demand 
for labor at good wages. 

42. Q. Tell about the system of crop reporting. 

A. Every member will become a crop reporter. In this way 
we will have the most complete and reliable reports, quite in 
contrast with the guessing at the present time. 

43- Q- Who will this movement injure? 

A. No person doing a legitimate business, but will build 
them all up. 

44. Q. Can this society prevent adulteration of food prod- 
ucts? 

A. This is one of the chief objects of the society, and when 
established it can effectually prevent adulteration, by inspection 
of food products, and by demanding and securing legislation 
against it. Fraud in food must cease. It is injurious to health, 
besides reduces the farmer's market to an amazing extent. 

45. Q. Why not have a society for each crop. For instance, 
grain growers, cattle growers, fruit growers, tobacco growers, 
cotton growers, etc.? 

A. Quite unnecessary. One national society, with represent- 
atives from all of these special crops on the national board, 



264 THE THIRD POWER 

can act as the clearing house for all the crops. In this way 
fewer officers will be needed. The expenses will be much less ; 
a better knowledge of crops and markets may be had, and, 
more than all, a mixed producer need not belong to a half 
dozen societies to secure representation. 

46. Q. How many members had the Alliance and Grange? 
A. About three or four millions each. 

47. Q. Do you think they could have succeeded if they had 
operated on the plan of the A. S. of E.? 

A. I do. I am sure if they had made their first object to 
secure profitable prices for their own goods instead of attempt- 
ing to put prices on the other party's goods, farmers would 
be successfully cooperating to-day, and rural America would 
be a paradise. 

48. Q. Are agricultural colleges, experiment stations, farm- 
ers' institutes and farm papers doing good for the farmers? 

A. Yes. It is well for all classes to be educated and en- 
lightened; but also, no, for they are teaching how to increase 
production, while we all know the larger the crop the lower 
the price. Now don't think that I am opposed to educating 
the farmers, but until they are also educated as to how to get 
a good price for increased crops the effort toward education 
is largely lost. Think about this. Farmers should demand of 
their institutes cooperation to bring about better conditions in 
marketing. 

49. Q. What will be the result if this effort to organize the 
farmers fails? 

A. There will be a land trust formed. The owners of the 
land will go into a trust, or capitalists will buy up the land. 
They can easily then control production and prices. This 
will be the worst thing that can happen to the country, but it 
is inevitable. In short, as we have shown that capital is de- 
pendent upon the farms, the capitalists may conclude that they 
must control the land to insure the integrity and permanency 
of their capital and investments. 

50. Q. Suppose when the farmers organize, buyers would 
refuse to pay the price they demand? 

A. How can they? Can consumers (human and domestic 
animals) do without food and clothing? If they would not 
pay the reasonable prices, farmers could strike for higher 
wages, and the strike would have the proper effect in a very 
few days. A farmers' strike would mean much more than a 
strike by union laborers. All others are dependent on the 
farmers. The farmers are dependent on no other class. 

51. Q. How does the food trust operate? 

A. It has warehouses in many parts of the country. It buys 
the farmer's fruit, vegetables, potatoes, butter, eggs, poultry, 
etc., in the summer, when prices are low, puts them in cold 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 265 

storage, and they come out at two or three times the price be- 
tween seasons. The farmers can attend to all this when or- 
ganized. 

52. Q. Could the government help the farmers by loaning 
them money at a low rate of interest? 

A. No, not permanently. Besides the farmers don't need 
help in that way. It would be the most degrading thing that 
could be offered them to make them the special objects of the 
country's charity. The farmer's position is the strongest of 
all. If they will only rise to their true position, they will 
never need to look to the government or outside sources for 
help. 

53. Q. Are not farmers taxed too heavily? 

A. Yes ; but here again if they will cooperate and get profit- 
able prices they won't need to care how much they are taxed. 
They can simply add it on the price of their goods. 

54. Q. When the farmers are organized they will likely be- 
come a power in politics? 

A. They could if they would. But why will they want to 
bother with politics ? They won't need anything in the way of 
profits that they can't take when they price their goods. We 
expect them, however, to dictate to political parties, for the in- 
terests of consumers and equity to all. 

55. Q. Is the ground as productive now as formerly? 

A. No. Our farms have been robbed of their original fertil- 
ity and the crops sold at prices that did not afford renewing it. 
It would bankrupt many farmers to restore the fertility to 
their farms, and it will bankrupt them if they continue farm- 
ing under the present system if they don't. So here you have 
a dilemma that absolutely demands better prices for farm 
products. Many farmers have already sold their birthright 
(the accumulated plant food of centuries) for a mess of pot- 
tage, and others will do it under the old system. 

56. Q. You speak of intensive farming. What do you mean? 
A. I mean raising the average of all our crops to two or 

three times the present yield. This can only be done by sci- 
entific farming, building up the soil with plant food and irriga- 
tion. All these wait on profitable prices for farm crops. 

57. Q. Could not good prices be made for farmers if your 
society had a large capital with which to buy the crops? 

A. Never. If all the money in the United States treasury 
was employed for this purpose the scheme would fail. Farm- 
ers must individually be responsible for their production as 
well as prices. If a company would agree to take all they 
raise at profitable prices there would be no check on their pro- 
duction, while the company or society must find some other 



266 THE THIRD POWER 



PERSON WHO WILL TAKE THEM AT AN EVEN HIGHER PRICE J and 

here would come failure in time. 

58. Q. Why not organize one state and see how the plan 
will work? 

A. This would be useless. It would not work. The farm- 
ers in Indiana could not do anything unless the farmers in 
Illinois, Ohio, etc., will cooperate with them. Also, it would 
not be possible to control prices on one crop and let the others 
take their chances, as then the crops that are not controlled 
would be neglected and the other one would be overproduced. 

59. Q. Can farmers secure profitable prices on their crops 
regardless of the European farmers? 

A. As soon as the European farmers know the price set by 
American farmers they will gladly rise to it. America has set 
the price on food in the past, and set it too low. European 
farmers suffered more than did our farmers, and they will be 
glad when the range is set higher. America can do this thing 
without the cooperation of Europe, because it is the greatest 
surplus country. But European farmers will cooperate, and 
arrangements are now making to organize them. 

60. Q. What will be some of the results of cooperation by 
farmers ? 

A. The results will be everything the farmers want or 
should have. Then land will increase in value 25 to 100 per 
cent. They will build good, modern, comfortable houses and 
barns. They will beautify their grounds. They will educate 
their children. They will build good roads all over the coun- 
try. The farmer and his wife and children will work less and 
hire more, visit and entertain more. The farmer's wife will 
furnish her home as well as the city woman does. The farm 
labor problem will be solved. The boys will want to stay on 
the farm, because it offers possibilities equal to any other busi- 
ness, and the farmers' profession will be the best one on earth. 
Besides all these things, and many more not necessary to men- 
tion, the success of this society will build up the country 
towns, and through the country merchants the benefits will 
reach the cities. It will, in short, benefit every legitimate in- 
dustry and every man, woman and child in the country. _ It 
means more for humanity than anything since the Christian 



INDEX 

Agriculture, page 

Big crops not a blessing 92 

Cattle receipts and prices 108 

Clearing-house of 106 

Cotton, base market 107 

Develop life on the farm 159 

False crop reports 138 

Farm price 107 

Future of America, the 152 

Grain, base market 107 

High prices, farmers not responsible 1 14 

Intensive farming 146 

Irrigation of farms 148 

Isolation of agricultural class 81 

Land values increase 148 

Maximum markets 118 

Minimum price 107 

Prices adjusted 140 

Production increased 89 

Price, uncertainty removed 152 

Safety valve, the 107 

Schools of and institutions 88, 140 

Somebody holds crops 98 

Spiritual side 147 

Surplus, no real 107 

Wider markets 135 

American Society of Equity, which represents the Third 

Power 235-238 

Benefits and strength 129 

267 



268 INDEX 

American Society of Equity — Continued. page 

Boys, keep them on the farm 153 

Broad and comprehensive 106 

Cold storage houses 100 

Constitution and by-laws of local unions 249-253 

Crop reporting system 138 

Elevators 99 

Food adulteration 148 

For benefits 178 

Freedom for all 190 

Fundamental force 128 

Highways, improve 145 

Incorporation, articles of 246-248 

Industrial, not political 185 

Is it the right kind of organization ? 96 

Is it practicable ? 174 

Liberty its great aim 190 

Liberty and independence, give 129 

Loaning money 101 

Local unions 249-253 

Need of 116 

Official organ 137 

Plan of 239-243 

Platform of 188 

Political party, not a 133 

Questions and answers 254-266 

Results of cooperation 148 

Results of farmers cooperating 244, 245 

Stands for equitable prices 102 

Strength, greatest element of 179 

The (A. S. of E.) 59, 235-238 

Triumphant success 182 

World wide 192 

Capital, 

Combines to beat down price 3 

Efficiency of 3 

Farmers warned 22 



INDEX 269 

Capital — Continued. page 

Organization of farmers, objected to 36 

Prices, arbitrarily fixed by capital 6 

Wealth, creation of 2 

Consumers, 

Lower prices 69, 105 

Protection of 118 

Economics, 

Consumption increasing 76 

Factors in production 1 

Irrigation, opposed to 19 

Problem, stupendous 8 

Surplus must be controlled 74 

Supply and demand 63-68 

Visible supply 87 

Wealth, creators of 1 

Farmers, Farms and Farming, 

Advised 25 

Are the people 163 

Bound together 84 

Business man, a 23 

Buy advantageously 125 

Buy at equitable prices 128 

Chosen people 180 

Combined, they have 175 

Consumers, the greatest 57 

Corn production 78 

Corner on food supply 42 

Discontented 31 

Earnings of in 

Ever victorious army 122 

Fair prices 108 

Fertility exhausted 7 

Free, is not 51 

Free himself 33 



270 INDEX 

Farmers, Farms and Farming — Continued. page 

Friends and helpers 143 

Fundamental right 41 

Gold out of ground 94 

Guerrilla warfare 85 

High prices, farmers not responsible 113, 115 

Hold crops, can they 97, 98 

Insurance 144 

Intensive 20 

Laborer, a mere 7 

Make it attractive 157 

Money, how secure 103 

No fight against anybody 130 

One thing to learn 4 

Organized 15, 25 

Organization necessary 71 

Organized power 10 

Patient 115 

Poor farmers hold crop 100 

Powerless, unorganized are 6 

Power, extent of 42 

Prairie, out on 29 

Prices made by others 5, 125 

Price, the question of 94 

Prices, how to get them 7, 104 

Produces five times as much 7 

Prosperous 32 

Slavery 8 

Sold their birthright 109 

Surplus, temporary 69 

Supreme 24 

Taxed for everything 133 

Twentieth century farmer, the 18 

Government, 

All the people 168 

Appeal, not to it 52 

City against the people 161 



INDEX 271 

Government — Continued. page 

Class 45 

Equitable, an 171 

Few control 134 

Freeman 53 

Honest 165 

Justice secured ; 172 

Laws, none for farmers 21 

Oligarchy 37, 161 

Oppressive ruler 167 

Powers, three 28 

Profitable prices, can not maintain 102 

Reciprocity treaties 134 

Representation by farmers, lack of 133 

Special privileges 48 

Strong government, a 160 

. Strong government, dangers of a 167 

Theoretically just 43 

True democratic. 163 

Industrial, 

Agricultural industry 6 

Farming is manufacturing 67 

Friendship in business, no 120 

Merchants want to know 58 

Organization of farmers objected to 36 

Threshermen's association 32 

Virtue of combination 121 

Wealth, creation of 2 

International, 

Consolidation of agricultural interests 197-232 

Discrimination against farm products 135 

European farmers 183 

Extended to other countries 187 

Federation of the nations 194 

Foreign countries affected 70 

Organizing other countries 148 



2>j2 INDEX 

International — Continued. page 

Tariff on wheat yy 

United States can control 75 

Labor, 

Coal strike, how could be ended 169 

Efficiency of 3 

Increased demand for 106 

Laborers, millions more needed 51 

Opposed to organization of farmers 50 

Wages advanced 105 

Politics, 

As relates to the farmers 30 

Game, is a 162, 165 

Laws, none in interest of agriculture 133 

More than 86 

Scientific 160 

Questions and Answers, 
Are agricultural colleges, farm papers, etc., doing good 

for the farmers ? 264 

Are farmers taxed too heavily? 265 

Are there too many farmers to cooperate? 256 

Can farmers cooperate? 254 

Can farmers organize? 254 

Can farmers in the United States secure profitable prices 

for their crops regardless of European farmers? 266 

Can this society regulate the price of potatoes? 261 

Can you help the tobacco growers, who are now at the 

mercy of the trust? 261 

Can this society prevent the adulteration of food prod- 
ucts? , 263 

Could the government help farmers by loaning them 

money at a low rate of interest? 265 

Could good prices be made for farm crops if your so- 
ciety had a large capital with which to buy crops? 265 



INDEX 273 

Questions and Answers — Continued. page 

Do farmers need to market a twelve months' supply in a 

few months ? 262 

Do you think money can be well spent in marketing 

farm crops ? 262 

Do you think they would have succeeded if operated on 

the plan of the A. S. of E. ? 264 

Does speculation injure farmers? 255 

How are members bound ? 259 

How about meat? Will prices advance? 260 

How can agricultural products be removed from the list?. 255 
How can poor farmers hold their crops to help maintain 

the minimum price ? 257 

How can farmers store their produce? 261 

How does the food trust operate ? 264 

How will the farmers' organization affect labor? 260 

How will this movement affect the producer of perisha- 
ble products ? 260 

How will this movement affect railroad rates, stock yard 

charges, grain inspections, grading, etc. ? 261 

How many members had the alliance and grange? 264 

If farmers can get good prices will they overproduce?. .257 
If a surplus should exist at any time what will be done 

with it? 257 

Is cheap food a blessing to the world ? 255 

Is the A. S. of E. a secret society? 259 

Is "The American Society of Equity" a good name? 257 

Is it a fact that the larger the crops the lower the prices?. 262 

Is the ground as productive as formerly ? 265 

Is the 1903 wheat crop worth $1 a bushel ? 258 

Must a member belong to a local union? 259 

On what does the prosperity of the country depend? 263 

Suppose buyers would not pay the price organized farm- 
ers asked ? 264 

Tell about the system of crop reporting 263 

What are the local union membership fee and dues?. .. .260 

Why are these selected? 255 

What are the speculative commodities ? 255 



274 INDEX 

Questions and Answers — Continued. page 

What will be the result if this effort to organize farmers 

fails ? 264 

What do you mean by intensive farming ? 265 

What is the membership fee and dues 260 

What will be the result of cooperation by farmers? 266 

When is the time to organize the farmers? 255 

Will farmers become a power in politics when organ- 
ized? 265 

Will farmers' business grow worse ? 255 

Will farmers hold together ? 254 

Will farmers stick together ? 259 

Will dollar wheat come? 258 

Will profitable prices for farmers make higher prices for 

consumers ? 260 

Will the minimum price limit consumption? 261 

Will you not need to control production as well as con- 
sumption ? 262 

Will it not be sufficient to have storehouses and get low 

freight rates ? 262 

Will plans be defeated if many farmers do not join? 263 

Who are eligible to membership in the A. S. of E. ? 259 

Who will be injured by this movement ? 263 

Why not have a society for each crop ? 263 

Why not organize one state and see how the plan will 

work? 266 

Why do you admit merchants, bankers, etc. ? 259 

Railroads, 

Dependent on farmers 119 

Discrimination in rates 119 

Interstate Commerce Commission 169 

Opposed to organization of farmers 36 

Rates, fair and equitable 17, 99, 118 

Speculation and Speculator, 

Chicago gambler 2 

Juggle with prices 6 



INDEX 275 

Questions and Answers — Continued. page 

Opposed to organization of farmers 36 

Speculator, the 12 

Stop speculation 17 

Trusts, 

Farmers pay the advances 9 

Land trust 70 

Extortion prevented by farmers' combine 130 



ieMy'08 



